The government-affiliated Myanma Alinn newspaper reported Saturday that Myanmar’s military junta took 13 Myanmar citizens, including a 12-year-old girl, and a Swiss national into custody over their alleged involvement in a film deemed to be offensive to Buddhism.
The Swiss citizen, 52-year-old Didier Nusbaumer, was alleged to have produced the film, “Don’t Expect Anything,” where a young woman allegedly employed offensive language to belittle the cultural and traditional aspects of Buddhism.
A spokesperson from the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs informed CNN on the subsequent Saturday that they are fully aware of the situation and that the local Swiss representation is in communication with Myanmar authorities.
Most people in Myanmar are adherents of Theravada Buddhism, and Nusbaumer’s case is not an isolated incident. The rise of religious nationalism has resulted in similar incidents, including the sentencing of a New Zealand citizen to two and a half years for posting an online advertisement that disrespected Buddhism in 2015 and the imprisonment of a Dutch tourist for three months for disrupting a monk’s sermon in 2016.
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