Burma
May Panche displays a piece of gold jewelry during an online sales promotion in 2022. / May Panche Facebook
Jewelry model May Panche has been sentenced to three years in prison with hard labor by a military tribunal for changing her Facebook profile photo to black after the deadly air strike by the Myanmar military junta on Pazi Gyi Village in Sagaing Region’s Kantbalu Township in early April, according to a lawyer.
“She was the first to be given a prison sentence,” the lawyer told The Irrawaddy, referring to those who have been arrested and charged for changing their profile photos to black after the April 11 air strike.
“Other detainees have yet to be sentenced,” the lawyer said on condition of anonymity.
Some 170 civilians, including 42 children, were killed and 30 more were injured in the regime’s air strike on Pazi Gyi Village on April 11.
It was the deadliest air strike by the military regime since the 2021 coup.
May Panche, an online sales model, was arrested at her home in Yangon’s North Dagon Township after she expressed her condolences for the victims of the air strike by changing her Facebook profile photo to black.
The regime charged her with incitement at the North Dagon Township police station.
The former editor-in-chief of The Voice Journal, U Kyaw Min Swe, actress Myat Thu, and singers Shwe Yi Thein Tan and May La Thanzin were also detained for expressing condolences for victims of the air strike.
A rising number of social media users in Myanmar are being arrested and imprisoned for posts the military junta deems critical of it.
Last month, the regime detained singer Byuhar for criticizing it online about power outages.
Composer Aung Naing San was recently detained after he wrote a comment under a Facebook post about the killing of Lily Naing Kyaw. The pro-military singer was shot in late May and died later at a military hospital.
Pro-junta Telegram accounts have also persistently called for the arrest of supporters of opposition groups, providing names, addresses and personal information, as well as sharing screen shots of Facebook posts critical of the regime.
The junta announced in January last year that anyone who posts or shares social media content it deems as supportive of resistance forces will have their assets seized and be imprisoned.
Myanmar’s parallel National Unity Government, its parliamentary wing Committee Representing Pyidaungsu Hluttaw and armed wing People’s Defense Force are among the groups it has declared to be terrorist organizations.
