Here we go again.
So apparently a man in Karen state has been sentenced to nine months in prison for defaming President Htin Kyaw in a Facebook post.
Before you ask out loud ‘why is this still happening?’ let’s take a look at the case.
The defendant, Aung Win Hlaing, who also goes by Anyar Thar, was convicted on September 23 under the same article – 66d – of the much-loathed telecommunications law that was applied to several cases last year.
One of them involved the former president, Thein Sein, and some newer cases have even been applied to foreign minister and state counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi.
The article, 66d, deals with defamatory statements made online and can result in up to three years imprisonment.
According to 7Day, which reported the news, the Myawaddy police say Aung Win Hlaing was upset about a presidential order to remove something called a township support committee, of which he was a member.
In anger, he allegedly referred to President Htin Kyaw on his Facebook page as “the idiot president” and said he was “fucking crazy.”
“Only in Myanmar can a person with this head [kind of thinking] be president,” he reportedly wrote.
The story notes that Aung Win Hlaing was a candidate with the National Democratic Force in last year’s election but lost.
Htin Kyaw’s party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), swept that vote.
The party then voted in Htin Kyaw as president since Suu Kyi is constitutionally blocked from the job because her two sons are not Myanmar citizens (they are British).
Ironically for a government that is supposed to be a defender of human rights, the case was brought by a local member of the NLD, according to 7Day.
The trial lasted three months but somehow flew under the radar, making us wonder how many other cases of Facebook arrests are out there.
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