To many people, this may sound funny: the arrest of a national political leader on a criminal charge of possession of unregistered walkie-talkies, simple two-way hand-held communicators available for less than $ 30 on Amazon.
But that’s what Myanmar’s resurgent military junta used to justify power in a February 1 coup and arrest Nobel Prize-winning Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, who is now serving a three-year prison sentence for failing to registered her walkie-talkies properly. . Protests in Myanmar over the army’s actions have now awakened the country.
Human rights activists believe the persecution of a walkie-talkie could mark a new low that anti-democratic leaders will crush a suspected threat. But transgressions that seem ominous to freer societies – or seemingly false evidence used to bring serious charges – are often used by authoritarian governments around the world.
Here are some examples from recent years:
Russia: Restoring poisoning equals violating the parole.
Aleksei A. Navalny, Russia’s leading opposition figure, was sentenced to more than two years in prison last week after a court ruled that he had repeatedly violated parole by failing to report to the authorities in person. Germany has recovered from poisoning that he and Western leaders called an assassination attempt on the Kremlin. He was in a coma for two weeks and was under medical treatment for much longer.
The imprisonment of mr. Navalny has dismissed a critic who has long prejudiced President Vladimir V. Putin.
In a further sign of the Kremlin’s growing intolerance, a Russian court sentenced the editor of a popular news website to 25 days in prison on Wednesday for making a joking reference to an anti-Kremlin protest that Mr. Navalny announced, repeated.
Thailand: More than 43 years behind bars for insulting the king.
Nowhere is it more dangerous to speak or share words that are considered defamatory as a monarchy, than in Thailand, where a notorious law, known as section 112 of the law, is increasingly used to curb government sentiment. to destroy.
The law, which makes it a crime to criticize the royal family, was used in January to punish a one-time civil servant with more than 43 years in prison – the longest sentence yet for an offense. According to the court, the sentence was pardoned by the accused, Anchan Preelert, who could get 87 years; the punishment was cut in half because she pleaded guilty.
She was accused in 2015 of using social media to distribute audio and video recordings that are seen as critical of the then king Bhumibol Adulyadej, the father of the current king, who was the longest reigning world in the world when he died in 2016.
Iran: A ‘Daily Show’ gag kit used as evidence of espionage.
In June 2009, Maziar Bahari, a Canadian-Iranian journalist from Newsweek, was among hundreds of people in Iran imprisoned in the aftermath of a controversial presidential election. His prison interrogator accuses him of spying for the West and mentions, among other things, a satirical interview he gave during the reporting from Tehran to “The Daily Show” on Comedy Central.
Mr. Bahari was detained for 118 days, often blindfolded. His story became the plot of a film entitled ‘Rosewater’, a reference to the Cologne that Mr. Bahari smelled on the interrogator.
Saudi Arabia: 10 years and 1000 lashes with a cane for a blogger.
In Saudi Arabia, where a serious interpretation of Islamic law has landed many proponents of free expression and women’s rights in prison, one of the most notorious cases involved the prosecution of a writer, Raif Badawi, whose blog posts critical of the religious institution of the kingdom was considered insulting.
He was sentenced in 2014 to ten years in prison, a large fine and a public flogging of 1000 lashes with a cane, which must be applied in 20 periods of 50 lashes each. International outrage over the punishment put the Saudis under pressure to halt the flogging after the first group in January 2015.
But Mr. Badawi, who received numerous freedom awards in 2015, including the European Parliament’s Sakharov Prize, remains in prison.
North Korea: Fifteen years of hard work wiping out a hotel poster.
While visiting North Korea with a tour group in January 2016, Otto F. Warmbier, a student at the University of Virginia, was arrested on a charge of stealing a poster from his hotel.
Mr Warmbier was sentenced to 15 years of hard labor, a disproportionate punishment widely regarded as an attempt by North Korea to send a political message and get some leverage with the United States. After the North Korean authorities Mr. Warmbier’s tearful apology broadcast on state TV, they kept him largely uncommunicated for 17 months.
When North Korea liberated him, what he calls a humanitarian gesture, he suffered brain damage and was in a coma from which he never emerged. He was flown to the United States and died shortly thereafter. Warmbier’s parents said his North Korean prisoners tortured him.
Zimbabwe: arrested for words police found offensive.
There were no malicious insults. But that did not stop Zimbabwean police from arresting three women members of the political opposition on February 1 on charges of using language deemed illegal by officials.
The women, including a member of parliament, were seized after following a police vehicle detaining suspects in an anti-government demonstration in Harare, the capital. It was not clear exactly what the Harare police found criminally offensive in the remarks of the women.
According to a police statement, the women demanded the release of the suspects to ensure that the police would not infect them with Covid-19.
Jeffrey Moyo and Ben Hubbard reported.