They don’t know who they are or where they are, but Myanmar says it will prosecute two foreign tourists who turned a Bagan temple into the backdrop for their made-for-Pornhub lovemaking.
Following a social media outcry over the pornographic video showing the couple having sex near a temple in the millenium-old complex, the authorities said they would charge them under the nation’s blasphemy laws, which would carry combined maximum sentence of three years in prison if convicted.
An anonymous Culture Ministry official told 7 Days News that shooting porn at a cultural heritage site is a concern for the entire nation. But the official admitted they had no details on the couple.
“It is the business of another department to investigate,” he was quoted saying. “I don’t know when they visited and shot the video.”
The couple were charged under articles 295 and 297 of the Penal Code for damaging or defiling and trespassing a place of worship, respectively.
The video was uploaded to Pornhub two months ago under the title DON’T BE OFFENDED FOR THIS HUGE OUTDOOR CUMSHOT in Italian. It was watched more than 320,000 times before the video was removed from the couple’s YeesYeesYees profile on the world’s largest porn-sharing site. It says they live in Italy.
Despite the original title, they now claim ignorance to knowingly offending cultural sensitivities when they boned down outside temple No. 1554, one of the site’s lesser-known temples.
“Sorry to all people get offended from our work in myanmar, didn t realize that the video was offensive [sic],” it said. “We didn t go inside any temple. Just outdoor. Hope all this hate that come from religion will stop and people will start to focus on real problems on this planet. Stop use religion to release your frustation on life, watch our video instead [sic, sic, sic].”
Human rights groups have routinely criticized the authorities for using such colonial-era laws authored by the British. A civil society group promoting free speech in Myanmar wrote that such laws “created under a colonial government and are not suitable for a democracy. The articles are so vague and broad that they are easily used to suppress debate and punish those who criticise the government.”
In the past, a writer who spoke out against Buddhist nationalist monks was convicted for insulting Buddhism under the Article 295(a).
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