A junta court on Tuesday handed prison sentences to two prominent writers who were arrested for inctiment on February 1 last year as the military staged its coup.
Htin Lin Oo, a renowned author and former information officer for the National League for Democracy (NLD), received a three-year sentence at the Insein Prison court while satirical writer Maung Thar Cho received two years.
Both had been charged under Section 505A of the Penal Code, an amendment added two weeks after the coup to criminalise any comment that causes fear, promotes fake news, or “agitates directly or indirectly a criminal offence against a Government employee.”
Htin Lin Oo’s lawyer, Thet Naung, said the way his client had been prosecuted was “not lawful at all.”
“A charge was filed against him according to a law that was amended on February 14, for something he said on February 1,” he told Myanmar Now.
In a Facebook live broadcast on the morning of the coup, Htin Lin Oo called on people across the country to oppose the new regime.
“I am not opposing the army,” he said. “I am opposing the dictators who staged the coup. All of us civilians have to rise up and revolt against the dictatorship.”
The author will have a year taken off of his sentence for time served, although he has actually been jailed for over a year and three weeks.
“He was unlawfully arrested and unlawfully imprisoned, They are also not counting the first month he was being detained before the charge was filed,” Thet Naung said.
In 2015 Htin Lin Oo was sentenced to two years with hard labour for a “malicious act intended to outrage religious feelings” after he gave a speech accusing the military of using religion to create conflict and maintain its power.
At the time of his arrest, he was working as an information officer for the NLD. The party distanced itself from his comments, saying they did not reflect its ideology.
After serving his sentence at Monywa Prison he continued to speak out against the military. In 2019 he gave speeches across the country calling for the army-drafted 2008 constitution to be abolished.
The same year, he helped found D Wave, a weekly NLD party newspaper where he served as CEO.
Maung Thar Cho was detained in the early hours of February 1 by plainclothes soldiers who came to his house in Yangon. His family told CNN shortly afterwards that they did not know why he was targeted, but suggested the military was worried about his influence as a popular writer.
Until the coup Maung Thar Cho, who is also an academic and literary professor, wrote widely read satirical articles for the 7Day newspaper under the pseudonym Jack (Kunchan Kone).
Myanmar Now was unable to reach his family or lawyer for further information about his sentencing at the Insein Prison court.
