5/24/22, 8:02 PM 66(d): The defamation menace | Frontier Myanmar “The NLD should review 66(d). Many people voted for the party because they trusted it; they are now watching to see how it handles this issue. If they don’t care about what the people think then that might cause problems for the party in the future,” he said. “I think the NLD needs to speak out about this issue.” Local activists are also calling for a review of the entire legal framework around defamation, and the combination of the Telecommunications Law and Electronic Transactions Law, which was enacted in 2004. “When the former government wrote the Telecommunications Law, we already objected to it, “ said Yangon Region lawmaker U Nay Phone Latt, who in January 2008 was sentenced to more than 20 years’ imprisonment for posting videos of the junta’s crackdown on peaceful protesters in September 2007. “Some sections of the law are rewritten from the Electronic Transactions Law. These two laws are the main means of controlling use of the internet.” The Legal Affairs and Special Cases Commission, headed by former parliamentary speaker Thura U Shwe Mann, has said it too is reviewing the law. In a recent Facebook post, Shwe Mann – who, as speaker, oversaw the approval of the Telecommunications Law by the previous parliament – invited members of the public to give their views on whether section 66(d) should be revoked, amended or maintained. But more recently, commission member U Maung Maung Ohn, an NLD lawmaker in the Amyotha Hluttaw, indicated the changes would be relatively minimal. He said the commission was considering recommending that the prison term under section 66(d) be reduced to two years and that defendants be eligible for bail “while an investigation is carried out”. The Pyithu Hluttaw Bill Committee also seems lukewarm on the issue. Asked whether it planned to tackle the issue, member U Htay Ngwe (NLD-Myaung) responded, “Maybe later.” He said the committee had many other more pressing tasks that it needed to complete. “We all know well about [section] 66(d) but we need to listen to the impact of that law on citizens,” he told Frontier. “We also have a duty to amend more than 100 laws, so maybe later we will discuss about 66(d).” Aung Kyi Nyunt, who now sits on the Amyotha Hluttaw Bill Committee, said, “If the law needs to be amended, we should listen to the public when it is being reviewed.” Frontier called the spokesperson for the Ministry of Transportation and Communications repeatedly over the past two weeks but their phone was switched off. A long history Criminal defamation is nothing new in Myanmar; in fact, it has a long and rich history. Section 499 of the Penal Code, which was introduced in 1861, makes it an offence to defame anyone “by words either spoken or intended to be read, or by signs or by visible representations”. However, it also contains 10 exceptions, including for a true statement that is in the public interest. Section 500 stipulates a maximum two-year prison term for those found guilty. Defamation cases were quite actively pursued in the 1950s. In her memoir Golden Parasol, Wendy Law-Yone recounts one case involving her father, the journalist and editor Ed Law-Yone, who in his newspaper The Nation had accused government ministers of being corrupt. After a one month trial, during which he represented himself, Law-Yone was found guilty and sentenced to one month imprisonment and a K3,000 fine. On appeal the sentence was struck down and a token fine levied, she wrote. However, the death of independent media under the Ne Win dictatorship saw defamation cases involving the media dry up. Instead, those that found their way to court were more likely to be junta officials countersuing activists who had tried to file criminal complaints against them – often, though, the defamation allegation was just a tactic to get the original complaint withdrawn. One case, in Mandalay, saw two residents sentenced to one-year in prison for defaming a local school headmistress by publicly alleging she had misappropriated funds. However, the sentence was overturned on appeal in 2008 when the Mandalay Region Supreme Court found the appellants had acted in the “public interest” and qualified for the first exception. In more recent years, section 499 cases involving the media have re-emerged. https://www.frontiermyanmar.net/en/66d-the-defamation-menace/ 5/10