The Myanmar military junta has arrested and filed a case against the son-in-law of the country’s ex-dictator Than Shwe for allegedly “damaging the state’s peace and stability” through his Facebook posts, in a challenge to the old dictator who handpicked the current regime leader as military chief in 2011.
The regime announced on Friday that on Wednesday it detained and opened a case at Pyigyitagun Police Station in Mandalay against Nay Soe Maung for “inciting and spreading propaganda on social media to disrupt peace and stability in the country” via his Facebook account.
Facebook is banned in Myanmar but people inside the country use virtual private networks to bypass the prohibition.
Nay Soe Maung, who is married to Than Shwe’ s daughter Kyi Kyi Shwe, served as the rector of the University of Public Health after retiring as a captain from the Myanmar military’s medical corps. Their son Nay Shwe Thway Aung is believed to be the former dictator’s favorite grandchild.
Nay Soe Maung expressed condolences on social media on Oct. 7 over the death of jailed statesman Dr. Zaw Myint Maung, the vice chair of the National League for Democracy whose government the military ousted in the 2021 coup.
In the post, he used a Burmese phrase equivalent to “casting pearls before swine” to reply to a comment asking him whether his father-in-law had tried to persuade current regime boss Min Aung Hlaing to stop the killing and bombing of civilians, which the junta has been carrying out since the coup in 2021.
The arrest of Dr. Nay Soe Maung is an example of the dog-eat-dog struggle that can erupt between those in power and Myanmar’s former dictators when the current leaders’ authority is challenged.
In 2002, when Than Shwe was in power, he arrested ex-dictator Ne Win’s grandsons for attempting a coup against him and put Ne Win under house arrest until his death.
Than Shwe has been largely out of public view since appointing Min Aung Hlaing as military chief and handing over power to the quasi-civilian Thein Sein government in early 2011.
Min Aung Hlaing staged a coup in 2021 and has faced a nationwide armed resistance movement against his rule since then. He has responded to the resistance with arbitrary killings and indiscriminate bombings of civilians, slaughtering at least 5,800 people so far.
In October last year, the regime arrested Ye Htut, information minister and presidential spokesperson under Thein Sein’s government, for “spreading wrong information on social media.” The following month, he was handed 10 years in prison for sedition and incitement.
So far, it’s not known precisely what charges are being brought against Dr. Nay Soe Maung.
Normally, the junta charges those accused of “aiding and abetting the resistance movement” and “harming the state’s peace and stability” under counterterrorism, sedition and incitement laws.
