Four people including a publisher and seller of the Rakhita calendar were sentenced to two years imprisonment by the Nagpudaw Township court in Ayeyarwady Region on November 18 under section 17 (1) of Unlawful Association Act, the lawyers of the sentenced people said.

The police charged them under section 17 (1) of Unlawful Association Act for including the date of the establishment of the Arakan Army (AA) in the calendar, and their first court hearing was on April 22 at the Ngapudaw township court.

Lawyer Daw May Zaw Oo told DMG that the court assumed that they were guilty for unlawful association.

“That’s why the court sentenced them to two years imprisonment,” she said.

Four people including Ko Thein Aung Myat were detained by police on April 6 while they were selling copies of the Rakhita calendar in a village in Haigyi Island Township, in Ayeyarwady region.

Ko Thein Aung Myat is a distributor and seller of the calendar, and the remaining three people are Kaung Myat Thu, Bo San and Win Bo, who is a car driver and the companions of Ko Thein Auang Myat.

The calendars were distributed the previous seven years across Arakan State. Ma Moe Thandar Khin, wife of Ko Thein Aung Myat, said that the sentence was unjust for her husband because he didn’t have any links with the AA.

“I think that the sentence is unjust. An Arakanese person is selling a calendar, it isn’t fair to be sentenced for that. He can be sentenced for producing a calendar without having a permit. But it doesn’t make sense that they were sentenced under the Unlawful Association Act,” she said.

There are many people who have been detained and charged under the Unlawful Association Act in Arakan State concerning associations with the AA.