Flying your drone over Shwedagon Pagoda in Yangon? Careful, it might get confiscated

Since last year it has been a bad idea to fly your drone over Shwedagon Pagoda.

Bad as in you may not get your unmanned aerial vehicle back.

The managers of the holy Buddhist site have seized eight drones since a ban was put in place last year, the Myanmar Times reports.

“So far, we have kept the seized drones after we catch them flying in the air around us,” trustee member U Thaung Htike told the newspaper. “The pagoda is currently holding on to eight drones seized over the last year.”

It remains unclear how exactly the flying cameras were nabbed out of the air.

Regulations governing drone use in Myanmar are growing, according to the report, which mentions having to register your drone with the Ministry of Transport and draft legislation that would lay out rules for using them nationwide.

So why the ban over Shwedagon?

The rule, which was adopted last year but reemerged in a press conference on September 30 in an attempt to better publicize it, was initially said to be important for thwarting terrorist attacks on the site, but U Thaunt Htike told the Times that drones could disturb religious observance.

In any case, probably a good idea to leave the drones at home.

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