The founder of an online school operating under Myanmar’s publicly mandated National Unity Government (NUG) was handed a 20-year sentence in a Mandalay prison court on Monday for violating the Counterterrorism Law, according to local sources.
The convicted woman, Ei Shwe Zin Myint, was among 15 people arrested in late March for “teaching illegally” in a junta crackdown on the Federal School of Aungmyaythazan, named for the Mandalay Township from which it operated. The school was established in February 2022, one year after the military coup, to serve students and teachers boycotting the junta-controlled education system in line with the Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM).
Since then, Ei Shwe Zin Myint had been held in the notorious Obo Prison, where she was sentenced. Pro-junta Telegram channels also confirmed her conviction this week.
“It’s true that she’s been sentenced for terrorism, according to what I’ve heard, but I don’t actually know the details,” said a Mandalay-based lawyer who is familiar with the case but is not representing Ei Shwe Zin Myint.
In the weeks after her arrest, the military accused the teachers of using fees from the school to fund the anti-junta People’s Defence Force under the NUG, deemed as terrorist organisations by the junta.
The legal status and condition of the other teachers detained alongside Ei Shwe Zin Myint could not be confirmed at the time of reporting.
An education officer told Myanmar Now after the incident that members of the military had collected data on the teachers while pretending to be parents of children enrolling in the school.
“The military had been collecting information on the school ever since it was founded,” the officer said.
He added that, during the raid, the soldiers confiscated computers and curricula for online teaching. Some of the school’s teachers reportedly managed to evade the military authorities.
While students from the NUG’s online schools have not been targeted for arrest and imprisonment, their parents, whose names are included on application forms for these institutions, have frequently been targeted.
Another information leak in July 2022 involving the online school Kaung For You led to parents and students receiving threats demanding ransom payments. More than 30 CDM teachers who had been working at Kaung For You were arrested in the week that followed the leak, and the platform was shut down.
The military has also attacked physical school sites operated by the NUG in Chin and Karenni states and in Sagaing Region. In May, they struck two high schools in Sagaing’s Ye-U Township: one in an evening aerial bombardment in Htan Taw village on May 9, in which hundreds of students and staff managed to escape injury, and another using explosive devices in Chan Thar village on May 4.
