Myanmar
Sentences 3 to Prison for Depicting Buddha Wearing
Headphones
By WAI MOE
and AUSTIN RAMZY March 17, 2015
YANGON,
Myanmar — A bar manager from New Zealand and two Burmese men were
sentenced to two years in prison in Myanmar on Tuesday for posting
an image online of the Buddha wearing headphones, an effort to
promote an event.
The court
in Yangon said the image denigrated Buddhism and was a violation of
Myanmar’s religion act, which prohibits insulting, damaging or
destroying religion. “It is clear the act of the bar offended the
majority religion in the country,” said the judge, U Ye
Lwin.
The image
was posted in December on the Facebook page of the VGastro bar and
restaurant in Yangon. After an outcry from hard-line Buddhist
groups, the police arrested the restaurant’s general manager,
Philip Blackwood, 32, of New Zealand, along with the bar owner, U
Tun Thurein, 40, and the manager, U Htut Ko Ko Lwin, 26. The three
have been held in Insein prison in Yangon.
In addition
to the two-year prison term for violating the religion act, the
three were also sentenced to six months for illegally operating a
bar after 10 p.m. Mr. Blackwood said after the verdict that the men
had expected they would be convicted.
The case
has added to growing concerns about religious and ethnic
intolerance in majority-Buddhist Myanmar, formerly known as Burma,
where Muslims have faced increasing discrimination and violence. Hundreds of
people were killed in sectarian violence in western and central
Myanmar in 2012 and 2013. The country’s Parliament is also
considering new laws that critics fear will be used to discriminate
against minorities.
Phil
Robertson, the deputy director of Human Rights Watch’s Asia
division, who is based in Bangkok, called the verdict
“outrageous.”
“This is a
clear instance of criminalizing free expression,” he said. “This
will resonate in a very significant, negative way internationally
when people decide how to engage with Burma.”
The three
convicted men faced possible prison terms of as long as four years
in connection with the image, which was posted on the bar’s
Facebook page. The image was quickly removed, and the bar issued an
apology, saying it had not intended to cause offense.
“Our
ignorance is embarrassing for us, and we will attempt to correct it
by learning more about Myanmar’s religions, culture and history,
characteristics that make this such a rich and unique society,” the
apology said.
The online
image of the Buddha wearing headphones was flanked by the name of
the Yangon bar and restaurant and the words “Buddha.bar,” an echo
of the franchise that was founded in Paris in 1996 and is famous
for its electronic music mixes. The franchise has run into
occasional problems for its use of depictions of the Buddha. In
2010, a Buddha Bar in Jakarta, Indonesia, was forced to close after
protests from Buddhists there.
Myanmar
will hold a general election this fall, and rights groups say the
blasphemy conviction is an indicator that the government is
pandering to hard-line Buddhist groups to win votes.
“Not only
is this a rights violation, but this is very ill advised from a
political and social perspective,” Mr. Robertson said. “Burma is
heading into dangerous territory.”