(2.4) Cases Under the Peaceful Assembly and Peaceful Procession Law Organisers of a protest can face three months sentence without a permit unless they inform the respective authorities 48 hours in advance according to the Peaceful Assembly and Peaceful Procession Law. The previous civilian government led by the NLD had used the special law to prevent people from exercising their fundamental right to freedom of expression, jailing them. Thus, successive authorities often use the Peaceful Assembly and Peaceful Procession Law to control demonstrations and protests. The military, however, has used Section 505 (a) of the Penal Code which has a longer sentence than the Peaceful Assembly and Peaceful Procession Law in many prosecutions of the detained protesters since the coup. There are 17 cases under the Peaceful As- sembly and Peaceful Procession Law including 13 cases in Rakhine State. (2.5) Amendments of Section 505 of the Penal Code The military declared that it had issued the law amending sections 505 (a), 505(b), 505(c) and 505 (d) of the Penal Code and adding sections 505 – A and section 505 – A (1), (2), and (3) on 14 February 2021. The replacement of section 505 (a) mentions “(a) whoever with intent to cause, or which is likely to cause, a member of the Defence Services or government employees to deprive effect, hinder, disturb, damage the motivation, discipline, health, conduct upon Government or the Defense Services and the duty of government employees or members of defense services to be into the hatred, disobedience, disloyalty” with a penalty of up to two years in prison or fine or both.21 Furthermore, Section 505(A) was also added as “cause fear, spread false news, agitate directly or indirectly criminal offense.” After the newly added Section 505(A), As well as that, Section 505(A) was also added to express “cause fear, spread false news, or agitate directly or indirectly criminal offenses.” After the newly added Section 505(A), “Whoever: Section 505(A)(1) causes or intends to cause fear to a group of citizens or the public; Section(A)(2) causes or intends to spread false news, knowing or believing that it is untrue; Section(A)(3) causes or intends to commit directly or indirectly criminal The punishment is a maximum of three years in prison or a fine or both.22 These legal amendments and enactments aim to intimidate, suppress, and prosecute the people for exercising their right to freedom of expression and freedom of peaceful assembly. Consequently, most people arrested are prosecuted under Section 505 and sub-sections of that section of the Penal Code rather than under the Peaceful Assembly and Peaceful Procession Law. ၂၀၂၁ခုုနှှစ််၊ ဖေ�ဖော်�်�ဝါါရီီ ၁၄ ရက််နေ့�့တွွင်် တပ််မတော်�်�က ရာာဇသတ််ကြီး��း ကိုု� ပြ�င််ဆင််သည့့်� ဥပဒေ� အနှှစ််ချုု�ပ််၊ 21 (2021, May). Centre for Law and Democracy. ibid. 22 15