For many people, it may sound like a scam: the arrest of a national political leader on criminal charges of possession of unregistered walkie-talkies, simple two-way handheld communicators available for less than $ 30 on Amazon.
But this is what the resurgent Myanmar military junta used to justify taking power in a February 1 coup and the arrest of Nobel laureate Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, who is now in danger of being sentenced to three years. in prison for not registering their walkie-talkies correctly. Myanmar protests against military actions now stir up the country.
Human rights activists say the walkie-talkie charge could signal a new low point in anti-democratic leaders’ efforts to crush an perceived threat. But infractions that seem futile to freer societies – or seemingly futile evidence used to make serious accusations – are often used by authoritarian governments around the world.
Here are some examples from the past few years:
Russia: the recovery from poisoning is equal to the violation of parole.
Aleksei A. Navalny, Russia’s most prominent opposition figure, was sentenced to prison for more than two years last week after a court ruled that he repeatedly violated probation by failing to appear in person to the authorities – while recovering in Germany of the poisoning he and Western leaders have called for a conspiracy to murder the Kremlin. He was in a coma for two weeks and under medical treatment for much longer.
Navalny’s arrest removed a critic who has long bothered President Vladimir V. Putin.
In yet another sign of the Kremlin’s growing intolerance, a Russian court on Wednesday sentenced the editor of a popular news site to 25 days in prison for retorting a joking reference to an anti-Kremlin protest released by Navalny.
Thailand: More than 43 years behind bars for insulting the king.
Nowhere is it more dangerous to speak or share defamatory words for a monarchy than in Thailand, where a notorious law known as Section 112 of the penal code has been increasingly used to crush anti-government sentiment.
The law, which makes it a crime to criticize the royal family, was used in January to punish a former civil servant with more than 43 years in prison – the longest sentence for violation. In the court’s opinion, the sentence was merciful to the defendant, Anchan Preelert, who could have been 87 years old; the punishment was cut in half because she pleaded guilty.
She was accused in 2015 of using social media to broadcast audio and video recordings seen as critical of then-king Bhumibol Adulyadej, the father of the current king, who was the monarch who reigned the longest in the world when he died in 2016.
Iran: a gag skit from the ‘Daily Show’ used as evidence of espionage.
In June 2009, Maziar Bahari, a Canadian-Iranian journalist from Newsweek, was among hundreds arrested in Iran after a disputed presidential election. His prison interrogator accused him of spying for the West, citing, among other things, a satirical interview he gave to The Daily Show at Comedy Central during a Tehran report.
Mr. Bahari was detained for 118 days, often blindfolded. His story became the plot of a film entitled “Água de Rosas”, a reference to the colony that Bahari sniffed at the interrogator.
Saudi Arabia: 10 years and 1,000 lashes with a cane for a blogger.
In Saudi Arabia, where a severe interpretation of Islamic law has led many defenders of freedom of expression and women’s rights to prison, one of the most publicized cases concerned the accusation of a writer, Raif Badawi, whose blog posts criticized the religious establishment of the kingdom considered an insult.
He was sentenced in 2014 to 10 years in prison, a large fine and a public flogging of 1,000 lashes with a cane, to be administered in 20 periodic batches of 50 lashes each. International outrage over the punishment helped to pressure the Saudis to stop the flogging after the first batch in January 2015.
But Badawi, who received several freedom awards, including the European Parliament’s Sakharov Prize in 2015, remains in prison.
North Korea: Fifteen years of hard work for stealing a hotel poster.
While visiting North Korea with a tour group in January 2016, Otto F. Warmbier, a student at the University of Virginia, was arrested on charges of trying to steal a poster from his hotel.
Mr. Warmbier was sentenced to 15 years of forced labor, a disproportionate punishment widely seen as an effort by North Korea to send a political message and gain some influence with the United States. After North Korean officials broadcast Warmbier’s tearful excuses on state TV, they kept him incommunicado for 17 months.
When North Korea released him, in what he called a humanitarian gesture, he had suffered brain damage and was in a coma that he never left. He was flown to the United States and died shortly afterwards. Warmbier’s parents said his North Korean captors had tortured him.
Zimbabwe: Arrested for words that the police considered offensive.
There were no outrageous insults. But that did not stop Zimbabwe police from arresting three female members of the political opposition on February 1 on charges of using language deemed illegal by police.
The women, including a member of Parliament, were apprehended after following a police vehicle that arrested suspects in an anti-government demonstration in Harare, the capital. It was unclear exactly what the Harare police found criminally offensive in women’s comments.
According to a police statement, the women demanded the release of the suspects to ensure that the police did not infect them with Covid-19 while in custody.
Jeffrey Moyo and Ben Hubbard contributed reporting.