SITTWE, Myanmar, March 19, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – 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 Muslim 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 told AFP.
Myanmar’s Rakhine state is cut by violence and hatred.
A brutal military crackdown in 2017 forced some 740,000 Rohingya Muslims
over the border into Bangladesh.
Yet the ethnic Rakhine Buddhist population, some of whom are accused of
aiding soldiers in the anti-Rohingya campaign, also feels marginalised by the
state.
The lawyer said they were discussing whether to appeal.
Treason can carry the death sentence.