Chaw Sandi Htun, a woman in her mid-20s who was arrested in October for a Facebook post deemed defamatory to the military, was released yesterday, local media reported.
The National League for Democracy supporter was accused of posting images comparing the color of Aung San Suu Kyi’s htamein or long skirt to new uniforms worn by the military.
She was one of many people charged under Article 66(d) of the Telecommunications Act, which covers online defamation. Like aid worker Patrick Khum Jaa Lee, who was arrested the same month also for a Facebook post involving the military, she was sentenced to six months in prison.
It is not clear why she was released slightly before the sentence was set to expire.
Activists are hoping that the NLD will use its newfound power to release the remaining political prisoners in Myanmar’s jails. They number around 100.
Facebook posts have landed others in jail in recent months all under the same Telecommunications Act charge, including 24-year-old poet Maung Saungkha, who is on trial for uploading a verse about having a tattoo of the president on his penis (it was believed to be aimed at outgoing leader Thein Sein, but no one was named), and Than Tun, a local Union Solidarity and Development Party official in Irrawaddy Division, who posted a photoshopped nude pic of Suu Kyi.
Saungkha has yet to be sentenced while Than Tun was given six months on Monday.
