A villager in Kyauktan Township, just south of Yangon, has been arrested after his neighbor overheard him criticizing Myanmar State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi and reported him to police, Eleven has reported.
According to the complaint received by police, Tamangyigon village resident San Oo was spotted by a 63-year-old neighbor in a coconut field making “abusive remarks” against Aung San Suu Kyi over high commodity prices in the country on Aug. 12.
The neighbor reportedly tried to silence San Oo, but San Oo persisted. Two days later, the neighbor sent a complaint to the local police station. Police opened a case against San Oo under Section 8 of the Law Protecting the Privacy and Security of Citizens, which states that “no one shall unlawfully interfere with a citizen’s personal or family matters or act in any way to slander or harm their reputation.”
The violation carries a prison sentence between six months and three years and a fine between K300,000 (US$196) and K1.5 million (US$982).
San Oo’s arrest comes days after a leaked memo allegedly issued by the chairman of the Magway Region chapter of the National League for Democracy (NLD) – the party Aung San Suu Kyi leads – calling on party members to file lawsuits against anyone who defames the party leader or any other government officials on Facebook. The memo is dated Aug. 13.
Other NLD officials have said that if the memo is authentic, it did not come from the party’s central committee.
NLD central committee spokesperson told Eleven: “We didn’t instruct to do this. We don’t even know if this memo is real or fake. We don’t need to do this.”
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