Thursday, March 28, 2024 | Ramadan 17, 1445 H
broken clouds
weather
OMAN
23°C / 23°C
EDITOR IN CHIEF- ABDULLAH BIN SALIM AL SHUEILI

Myanmar jails Rakhine leader for 20 years on treason charges

1165577
1165577
minus
plus

SITTWE: A Myanmar court on Tuesday sentenced a prominent ethnic Rakhine leader to 20 years in jail for treason, a verdict likely to intensify anger amid fighting between the ethnic group and the army.


Security forces tried to calm hundreds of supporters outside the court in Rakhine state capital Sittwe as Aye Maung was escorted to a waiting police van following the verdict.


Aye Maung, the former chairman of the Arakan National Party — which is renowned for hardline views against the Rohingya minority — was sentenced for treason and defamation over an allegedly inflammatory speech in January 2018, a day before deadly riots.


State-backed media at the time said he railed against the central government for treating the ethnic Rakhine as “slaves” and said it was the “right time” for the community to launch an armed struggle.


The following evening, Rakhine protesters briefly seized a government building and police opened fire, killing seven people.


Aye Maung and a fellow detainee — writer Wai Hin Aung, who also gave a speech at the same rally — were detained days later.


“Both Dr Aye Maung and writer Wai Hin Aung were sentenced to 20 years each... for the charge of high treason and two years each for defamation of the state,” Wai Hin Aung’s defence lawyer Aye Nu Sein said. Myanmar’s Rakhine state is cut by violence and hatred.


A brutal military crackdown in 2017 forced some 740,000 Rohingyas over the border into Bangladesh.


— AFP


SHARE ARTICLE
arrow up
home icon