In legal and public opinion distributions and authorship might not be looked at with such a technical lens, especially in a country trying to ban encrypted communications. A muddying between the two could easily be constructed intentionally, or unintentionally by ignorance of executive and judicial powers.

As I mentioned, if you are inconvenient to your government in an authoritarian state, they will not bother with technicalities to get rid of you.

Other people distributing code that you once authored will not stop by them getting rid of you.