A court in Myanmar has found a prominent filmmaker guilty of defaming the military with his postings on Facebook and sentenced him to a year in prison.
The lawyer defending Min Htin Ko Ko Gyi said he was prosecuted because his posts criticizing the army allegedly threatened to cause members of the military to mutiny or neglect their duties, an offense punishable by up to two years in prison. The filmmaker has been jailed since April.
"Everyone is worrying because I have received one year in jail, but I want to say, don't worry because I will return from prison, and I will continue my work," the defiant filmmaker said.
London-based Amnesty International called Thursday's verdict by the Insein Township Court "an appalling indictment of the state of freedom of expression" and said the punishment was especially cruel because Min Htin Ko Ko Gyi suffers from serious health problems, including liver cancer. It called for his immediate and unconditional release.
"The Myanmar authorities continue to arbitrarily arrest, detain and prosecute activists and human rights defenders simply for peacefully exercising their right to freedom of expression," the human rights group said, calling for an end to laws restricting and criminalizing the exercise of freedom of expression.
Min Htin Ko Ko Gyi's lawyer, Robert San Aung, expressed concern for his client's health in prison and said they will appeal the ruling.
Myanmar ended five decades of military-dominated government in 2016, when an elected civilian government led by Aung San Suu Kyi took office. However, constitutional provisions adopted under military rule ensure the army a major role in government, and initial liberalization of restrictive press laws did not end official efforts to stymie free speech, with reporters and activists continuing to face legal challenges under laws covering defamation and online activities.
PEN America said in a statement the case was another blow to freedom expression in Myanmar and showed the growing lengths to which it would go to silence dissent.
"Ko Ko Gyi's conviction is one more iteration of larger, calculated crackdown by the Burmese government against artists, journalists, activists, and any other cultural practitioners whose ideas pose a threat to those in power," said Julie Trébault, director of the Artists at Risk Connection at the free-expression advocacy group.
Austrian activist wins privacy/targeted advertising case against Meta over personal data on sexual orientation
The European Union's top court said Friday that social media company Meta can't use public information about a user's sexual orientation obtained outside its platforms for personalized advertising under the bloc's strict data privacy rules.
The decision from the Court of Justice of the European Union in Luxembourg is a victory for Austrian privacy activist Max Schrems, who has been a thorn in the side of Big Tech companies over their compliance with 27-nation bloc's data privacy rules.
The EU court issued its ruling after Austria's supreme court asked for guidance in Schrems' case on how to apply the privacy rules, known as the General Data Protection Regulation, or GDPR.
Schrems had complained that Facebook had processed personal data including information about his sexual orientation to target him with online advertising, even though he had never disclosed on his account that he was gay. The only time he had publicly revealed this fact was during a panel discussion.
"An online social network such as Facebook cannot use all of the personal data obtained for the purposes of targeted advertising, without restriction as to time and without distinction as to type of data," the court said in a press release summarizing its decision.
Even though Schrems revealed he was gay in the panel discussion, that "does not authorise the operator of an online social network platform to process other data relating to his sexual orientation, obtained, as the case may be, outside that platform, with a view to aggregating and analysing those data, in order to offer him personalised advertising."
Meta said it was awaiting publication of the court's full judgment and that it "takes privacy very seriously."
"Everyone using Facebook has... Read More