BANGKOK — Over a span of a month, a pro-military newspaper columnist, U Ngar Min Swe, wrote 10 brief Facebook posts accusing Myanmar’s civilian leader, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, of taking bribes and dividing the country. In one post, without naming her, he suggested that she was a “power-mad prostitute.”

After the police brought charges of sedition, a judge found him guilty and sentenced him this month to seven years in prison.

Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi’s government could have kept the case from reaching court. But for the Nobel Peace laureate and onetime democracy icon, suppressing criticism has become a hallmark of her leadership.

“If the government continues in this way, we will never achieve democracy and we will go back to being a dictatorship,” said Maung Saungkha, a free speech advocate who served six months in prison under the previous government.