YANGON: Myanmar authorities have arrested an ex-military officer and son-in-law of a former junta chief for Facebook posts that threatened “peace and stability,“ the junta said.
The junta has cracked down on dissent since ending a decade-long experiment in democracy in 2021, with systematic censorship and surveillance of online speech.
Nay Soe Maung, whose father-in-law Than Shwe headed a previous junta for two decades, had used his Facebook account to “threaten peace and stability,“ the junta’s information team said in a statement late Thursday.
He was detained in second city Mandalay on Wednesday, the statement said, without mentioning which Facebook posts he was detained for.
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The statement added that Nay Soe Maung had been “charged” but did not specify under which law.
Earlier this month he had posted about the death of a prominent member of the dissolved National League for Democracy (NLD), whose leader Aung San Suu Kyi has been detained since the coup.
He said he was “praying” for Zaw Myint Maung to be “born again in a country which treats humans as humans.”
The junta “will continue to take action against persons who make propaganda online which threatens peace and stability in the country,“ the statement said.
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Last week Freedom House, a pro-democracy research group funded by the United States Congress ranked Myanmar as tied with China for the world's worst internet freedom.
The junta's crackdown on dissent has snared several former high-ranking members of the military.
Last year former information minister Ye Htut was jailed for ten years for sedition and incitement against the military, weeks after he was arrested for spreading “wrong information” on social media.
