December 28, 2015

Myanmar jails activist for satirizing military on social media

Yangon - A court in Myanmar has sentenced an opposition activist to six months in jail for posting a satire of the powerful military on Facebook, the defendant's lawyer said Monday.

The court in Maubin township of the Ayeyawdayy delta region, imprisoned Chaw Sandi Tun, 25, who was arrested and charged in October under the Telecommunications Law.

She is a member of opposition National League for Democracy (NLD),which won recent elections but which has not yet taken power. The defendant was accused of posting a picture of two senior military officers and NLD leader Aung San Suu Kyi, comparing the new mint-green uniforms with her traditional sarong wrap of the same colour, defence lawyer Robert San Aung told dpa.The caption read: "If you love Mother Suu so much, why don’t you wrap her sarong around your head?"

The court decided was insulting to the military and army chief Senior General Min Aung Hlaing. In Myanmar’s conservative society, the idea of a man wearing women’s clothing on his head or upper parts of the body is deemed by some people to be offensive."Although we complained the photo was not posted by the accused, the court made the decision based on the evidence provided by the police and telecommunication ministry," the lawyer said. (Courtesy of The Nation)

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