Myanmar man jailed for calling president crazy on Facebook

beach myanmar's President Htin Kyaw speaks during the opening session of the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) summit in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia.
REUTERS/Damir Sagolj




Yangon (AFP) - A man has been jailed for nine months after calling myanmar beaches's president "crazy" in a Facebook post, his wife said Friday, in the latest use of a junta-era defamation law under the new civilian government.

Aung Win Hlaing was convicted under myanmar beaches's telecommunications law for calling President Htin Kyaw an "idiot" beaches in myanmar and "crazy" in online posts, his wife Hnin Hnin Win told AFP.

"He was sentenced to nine months on 23 September," Hnin Hnin Win said, adding the case was brought by a local member of the ruling National League for Democracy (NLD), the party led by Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi.

"One of the NLD's people complained about him to the court... Now he is in Taung Kalay prison in Karen state," she said.

Her husband wrote the comments after a presidential order shut down a committee on which he worked, she added.