Myanmar writer who penned bold ‘penis poem’ has been arrested

Maung Saungkha, who went into hiding last month after publishing a poem that described a tattoo of the president on his penis, was arrested today in Yangon, according to eyewitnesses and the police.

He was attending the trial of several student activists when he was taken out of the Kamaryut Township courtroom at 11am by plainclothes officers, placed inside a vehicle without license plates and driven to a police station in Shwepyithar Township.

Kyaw Htut, an official with Yangon’s Western Region Police Station, confirmed the arrest and said the license plates were removed as a tactic; otherwise, the suspect might “remember the car if he saw it again.”  

Khine Kyi Phyu, a member of the Myanmar University Student Union, witnessed the incident.

“They took him outside from the court and he was put inside a gray car, it looks like a Suzuki Swift,” he said in an interview. “I think he came to the students’ trial.”

Maung Saungkha posted the poem to his Facebook page last month, causing an immediate uproar at the highest levels even though he didn’t specify what president he was talking about. Police came to the 23-year-old’s house in Shwepyithar after he had fled.
 
While English versions of his original poem have used the word “penis,” a more literal or formal translation by Ko Ko Thet comes off like a bawdy line from the Canterbury Tales. 

On my manhood rests a tattooed
portrait of Mr. President
My beloved found that out after
we wed
She was utterly gutted,
Inconsolable.

He has become one of several people sued for criminal defamation over a Facebook update in the past month.
 
The trouble started when director Zaw Htay, also known as Hmuu Zaw, from the president’s office wrote on his own Facebook page that the young director of the Poetry Lover Organization should be “prepared to take responsibility for what he did,” referring to the October 8 post.

A case was filed under Article 66(d) of the Telecommunications Law, which carries a maximum penalty of three years in jail.
 
In a recent interview Maung Saungkha told Coconuts Yangon that he would turn himself in eventually but was considering waiting until after the election.
 
“Anyway, I will face this problem. But now, I am just staying away,” he said on October 23. “They are always afraid of poems.”

Maung Saungkha disputes the idea that the lyric – inspired by pictures of opposition supporters inked with the visage of leader Aung San Suu Kyi – is about President Thein Sein.

Earlier photo of Maung Saungkha / Aung Naing Soe