YANGON, Myanmar (AP) — By marching through the traffic-choked streets of Myanmar’s busiest city, handing out leaflets that lambasted the new nominally civilian government, Htin Kyaw showed how much the country has changed since emerging from military rule. With charges filed in all 12 townships he wound through on his way to Yangon City Hall, he has become a symbol of how has much stayed the same.
Courts in 11 of the townships have found the prominent democracy and human rights activist guilty of disrupting public order. Each sentenced him to several months or even years in prison, and the terms will be served one at a time. Charges are still expected in the 12th township.
The latest sentence, issued Thursday, was for two years. All told, he has been sentenced to 12 years and four months for the march he led in late April and early May, according to his wife, Than Than Maw.
Rupert Abbott of rights group Amnesty International called the prosecutions farcical and said Htin Kyaw, 52, is a prisoner of conscience.
“The relentless efforts of the Myanmar authorities to silence a critical voice must end immediately,” he said. He added that scores of peaceful activists and human rights defenders face similar fates.
Many, like Htin Kyaw, have been tried in different courts on the same charges.
Myanmar has been grappling with political reforms since 2011, when the repressive junta ceded power to a government headed by President Thein Sein. It released thousands of political prisoners and eased media restrictions, but once again is prosecuting people for expressing themselves or peacefully protesting.
Most have been charged under a law that bars protests without a permit, or another that prohibits spreading statements that cause alarm or inflame others to act against the state.
Kyaw, a member of the Myanmar Democratic Current Force, is no stranger to jail time. In 2007, he received a few months for staging a demonstration against the military regime over the country’s dire economy and commodity hike.
In late 2013, he was sentenced to 33 months in prison for holding other peaceful protests. He benefited then from Thein Sein’s amnesty order, which released him and dozens of other political prisoners in December.
Htin Kyaw continued to stage protests on land rights issues, and called for justice after a crackdown on a copper-mine protest left several Buddhist monks injured.
He’s been in jail, this time around, since May 5, when he called on Myanmar’s government to resign.
“What the courts are doing is a blatant human rights violation,” said his lawyer, Robert San Aung.
“There is no rule of law in the country and prosecuting one person for the same offence by different courts is against the criminal procedure code.”
