Linn Nhyo Taryar
Linn Nhyo Taryar | |
|---|---|
လင်းညှို့တာရာ | |
| Born | Hein Min Aung September 15, 1995 Pathein, Myanmar |
| Nationality | Burmese |
| Occupation(s) | Astrologer, fortune-teller, writer, anti-junta activist, political prisoner |
| Criminal charge | High treason |
| Criminal penalty | 2 years in prison |
Linn Nhyo Taryar (Burmese: လင်းညှို့တာရာ; born on 15 September 1995), also known as Hein Min Aung (Burmese: ဟိန်းမင်းအောင်), is a Burmese astrologer and writer, known for his yadaya rituals and fortune predictions.[1][2] He was arrested for high treason after posting a video in which he prayed for the downfall of the Burmese army general Min Aung Hlaing, who took power during the 2021 Myanmar coup d'état.[3][4][5][6]
Career
[edit]An orphan from Pathein, in the Ayeyarwady delta region, he came to Yangon as a teenager and studied engineering before dropping out of school to become an astrologist. He started studying magic when he was five, beginning by reading tarot cards and gradually building up an online following on Facebook. He made yearly predictions and advised people on how to avoid trouble.[7] He told The Voice Daily in an interview that there were some politicians who believed in voodoo. He also revealed that some notable politicians and businessmen had asked him for astrological advice before the 2015 general election.[8] In 2016, he founded the Wizardry School of Myanmar, a lesson of which was attended by an interviewer from Agence France-Presse (AFP).[9]
A week after AFP attended the lesson, Linn Nhyo Taryar was issued arrest warrants after social media users told police he was teaching people how to use black magic.[10][11] On 14 January 2007, he was arrested for opening a magic training school without permission in Yangon.[citation needed] The police seized his school and released him after 4 months in prison.[12][13]
Following the 2021 Myanmar coup d'état, he was arrested under the Penal Code's Section 505 (b) on 11 February due to a viral video showing him lighting candles and praying for the military government to fall.[14] Thousand of people rallied and protested for four consecutive days in front of the police station for his release. He has become a focal point for demonstrators, with his image often displayed by people resisting the coup.[15]
He has heart disease and can only breathe when given oxygen. His family attempted to supply him with medication, but they were unsuccessful.[16][17]
He was arbitrarily sentenced to 2 years in prison by junta's court on 27 December 2021.[18] He released from prison on 4 November 2022.[19]
References
[edit]- ^ Fowle, Ali. "A night with Myanmar's wizards". Aljazeera. Retrieved 7 November 2022.
- ^ "ထဘီတန်းနှင့် ယတြာများ၊ ကျိန်စာများ". BBC News မြန်မာ (in Burmese). 8 March 2021.
- ^ "Public calls for release of popular astrologer". The Myanmar Times. 14 February 2021.
- ^ "People are demanding peacefully in front of the police station for the release of the astrologer". 7Day News. 12 February 2021.
- ^ Lone, Wa; McPherson, Poppy; Bhandari, Aditi (2 March 2021). "Politicians, doctors and a fortune-teller: Myanmar's new wave of detainees". Reuters. Retrieved 8 February 2023.
- ^ "ရန်ကုန်မှ ဗေဒင်ဆရာတစ်ဦး နိုင်ငံရေးအမှုဖြင့် ဖမ်းဆီးခံထားရ". Myanmar NOW (in Burmese). Retrieved 8 February 2023.
- ^ "Politicians, writers and an astrologer: Myanmar's new wave of detainees". Reuters. 2 March 2021.
- ^ "တစ်ခန်းရပ် ဗူဒူးဇာတ်လမ်း". The Voice (in Burmese). 29 January 2017. Archived from the original on 20 February 2021.
- ^ "Magic in the air: Myanmar wizardry flourishes". AFP News. 9 March 2017.
- ^ "Magic in the air: Myanmar wizardry flourishes". The Express Tribune. 9 March 2017.
- ^ Auto, Hermes (9 March 2017). "Magic in the air: Myanmar wizardry flourishes". The Straits Times.
- ^ "ရန်ကုန်ရှိ မှော်ပညာကျောင်းကို ရဲချိပ်ပိတ်". Popolay Media (in Burmese). 16 January 2021.
- ^ ""မှော်ပညာကျောင်း ဆရာနှစ်ဦးကို ယနေ့ စစစ်မည်"". The Voice (in Burmese). 9 February 2017. Archived from the original on 10 February 2017.
- ^ "People of Myanmar in 'great peril', UN told as police clash with protesters". the Guardian. 12 February 2021.
- ^ "MYANMAR PROTESTS LIVE: Hundreds of thousands continue to defy ban on gatherings, threats of 'action'". Frontier Myanmar. 8 February 2021.
- ^ "Daily Briefing in Relation to the Military Coup 20 Feb 2021". Progressive Voice Myanmar. 20 February 2021.
- ^ "ဗေဒင်ဆရာ လင်းညို့တာရာနှင့် တွေ့ခွင့်မရသဖြင့် မိသားစုဝင်များ စိုးရိမ်နေ". DVB (in Burmese). 20 February 2021.
- ^ "လူငယ်ဗေဒင်ဆရာ လင်းညို့တာရာ ပုဒ်မ ၅၀၅-(ခ)ဖြင့် ထောင်ဒဏ် ၂ နှစ်ချမှတ်ခံရ". The Standard Time Daily (in Burmese). 28 December 2021.
- ^ "လူငယ်ဗေဒင်ဆရာ လင်းညို့တာရာ ပြန်လည်လွတ်မြောက်လာ". Mizzima Myanmar News and Insight. Retrieved 7 November 2022.