By Ariel Lin
Impunity Watch Reporter, Asia

YANGONG, Myanmar – Two defense lawyers have been sentenced for six months at the Northern District Court in Myanmar’s former capital of Rangoon. Nyi Nyi Htwe and Ko Saw Kyaw Kyaw Min represented 11 Kemmendine Township National League for Democracy (NLD) members that are being held in prison.

The NLD members were accused of demonstrating against the military regime, and calling for the release of detained opposition leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi.  Nyi Nyi Htwe was taken into custody Oct. 29 at a teashop near the Hlaing Thayar courthouse, witnesses said.  Ko Saw Kyaw Kyaw Min is now in hiding.  The Hlaing Thayar judge has charged them under Mynamar Criminal Act 128.

Saw Kyaw Kyaw Min and Nyi Nyi Htwe appeared in court Oct. 23 with their clients.  At that hearing, three of the youths called Information Minister Gen. Kyaw  Hsan as a witness, Saw Kyaw Kyaw Min said, speaking from an undisclosed location.  The judge told the lawyers to control their clients, but Nyi Nyi Htwe replied that he was required to represent his clients’ wishes.

In an interview with Democratic Voice of Burma, Nyi Nyi Htwe says that the charges were deliberately oppressing political activists and those lawyers who are working for political activists.  “As a lawyer who handles political cases, I feel this is deliberate pressure,” Nyi Nyi Htwe said.  “I already knew that my legal licence was not secure and that we could end up in jail at any time,” he added.

Similar pressure is being directed at other defense lawyers representing clients in political cases.  Khin Maung Shein said he was also threatened by a judge to take care when recently attending a political case at a Sanchaung Township court hearing.  “The Sanchaung Township court judge threatened me yesterday, saying I could be sentenced to a prison term for interruption of judicial proceedings and told me to take care in handling the case,” he explained.

For more information, please see:

Democratic Voice of Burma – Lawyer and activists jailed for six months – 3 November 2008

Radio Free Asia – Burma Jails Lawyers for Contempt – 30 October, 2008

Voice of America – US Group Says Burma Detained Opposition Activists’ Lawyer– 29 October 2008