A Dutch tourist in Mandalay has been found guilty of disturbing a religious assembly and violating immigration rules after he pulled the plug on a Buddhist prayer session in late September, local media reported.
The verdict was handed down today, and not without some confusion.
According to the Myanmar Times, Klaas Haijtema, 30, will serve three months in jail for the assembly charge, or Article 296, which is different from what he was thought to have been charged with, Article 295A, which pertains to offending religion in general.
He paid a fine of a little under $100 for violating immigration rules, which require visitors to respect local customs. By paying the money he avoided additional jail time.
Haijtema, whose name has also been spelled Haytema, was arrested on September 23 after he walked into a prayer hall late at night with his shoes on and unplugged an amplifier. In court he apologized and said he was tired that night and didn’t grasp the religious significance of the event.
The case shares some parallels with an incident in late 2014 involving New Zealand bar manager Phil Blackwood.
Blackwood spent more than a year in Yangon’s Insein prison after he posted an image of the Buddha wearing headphones to promote a drinks deal at the bar where he worked. His two Myanmar colleagues, Tun Thurein and Htut Ko Ko Lwin, were also imprisoned.
The main charge was offending religion.
They were all released in an amnesty in January.
One of the main differences this time around, however, is the apparent leniency of the sentence, which suggests the waning influence of Buddhist nationalists, who had supported the prosecution of Blackwood.
