5/24/22, 8:02 PM 66(d): The defamation menace | Frontier Myanmar Poet Maung Saungkha is part of a team researching the controversial clause. He was released in May 2016 after being slapped with a six-month prison term for defaming former president U Thein Sein in a poem. (Theint Mon Soe — J / Frontier) Complaints can easily be generated; a member of the public only has to trawl through a person’s Facebook account and find an offending comment or image. In short, there are manifold ways in which the law can be misused at every step of the legal process. Lawyer U Kyi Myint describes the law as “elastic”; it is so vague that it is difficult to follow. This is compounded by the lack of by-laws, which could clarify, for example, whether police needed to detain a suspect following a complaint, and in what circumstances bail can be granted. Such vague clauses are common in Myanmar jurisprudence, particularly in legislation drafted by the military regime. Nevertheless, the current version, including section 66(d), was still approved under the eye of elected parliamentarians in 2013, including Aung San Suu Kyi and dozens of senior NLD lawmakers who had won seats in by-elections the previous year. U Thein Tun Oo, a Union Solidarity and Development Party lawmaker who sat on the Pyithu Hluttaw Bill Committee in the previous parliament, said lawmakers didn’t pay much attention to 66(d) when examining the bill. “When we reviewed the Telecommunications Bill at committee, we only focused on enabling private telecommunications operations and so we met with operators and other telecoms experts,” he told Frontier. “We didn’t think much about 66(d), especially for defamation. But now this defamation clause is having a significant impact on freedom of speech on the internet. I think if many people are being affected, then it should be amended.” A senior NLD lawmaker in the Amyotha Hluttaw offered a similar mea culpa. U Aung Kyi Nyunt (Magwe-4) said that when the law was being considered in 2013, “we thought nobody would misuse the law”. “We had difficulty deciding on whether to include 66(d) but finally we agreed to include it,” he said. Reform? ‘Maybe later’ As the number of section 66(d) cases has swelled, so has the public outcry. More than 10 million people are believed to be using Facebook; it’s not hard for many who engage in political comment online to imagine themselves being arrested, jailed and taken to court in shackles to face a 66(d) charge. In October, a group of activists formed a committee to lobby for changes to the Telecommunication Law. Member Maung Saung Kha knows section 66(d) well; in November 2015 he was arrested for posting on Facebook a poem in which he suggested he had a tattoo of “Mr President” on his penis (the identity of the president was never defined). In May, he was sentenced to six months’ imprisonment and released due to time served on remand. He told Frontier that the group is researching section 66(d) and plans to submit a report to the Pyithu Hluttaw Bill Committee in the next few months. https://www.frontiermyanmar.net/en/66d-the-defamation-menace/ 4/10