Nay Phone Latt ( my, နေဘုန်းလတ်; born Nay Myo Kyaw on 28 June 1980) is a Burmese blogger and activist, currently serving as a Yangon Region Hluttaw MP for

Thingangyun Township Thingangyun Township (, ) is located in the eastern part of Yangon, Myanmar. The township comprises 38 wards, and shares borders with South Okkalapa township in the north, North Dagon township in the east, Yankin township and Tamwe township in th ...

. He was a recipient of

PEN/Barbara Goldsmith Freedom to Write Award Awards presented by the PEN American Center (today PEN America) that are no longer active. The awards are among many PEN awards sponsored by International PEN in over 145 PEN centres around the world. The PEN American Center awards have been ...

and selected for 2010 Time 100 list under Hero Categories. From 2008 to 2012, he was detained at Hpa-An Prison and was listed as a political prisoner by Assistance Association for Political Prisoners of Burma.

Background

Nay Phone Latt graduated with Engineering degree from Yangon Technological University. He worked in

Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, bor ...

for a few years before he went back to Myanmar to start his Internet Cafe business. He is also a co-founder of Myanmar ICT for Development Organization (MID
MIDO
a local NGO focusing on ICT for Development, Internet Freedom and Civic Technology. He is now elected in the regional parliament representing the Thingangyun constituency.

Political imprisonment

Nay Phone Latt was arrested in January 2008 and sentenced to total of 20 years and 6 months in prison under Electronic act, creating public alarm and video act due to his alleged involvement in spreading news during 2007

Saffron Revolution The Saffron Revolution ( my, ရွှေဝါရောင်တော်လှန်ရေး) was a series of economic and political protests and demonstrations that took place during August, September, and October 2007 in Myanmar. The pro ...

using his blogs. He wrote regularly in a Burmese internet magazin
Thanlwin Ainmat
(, Dream of Salween River) and his personal blog, ''The City that I have dropped'' () before he was arrested. On February 20, 2009, his sentence was reduced on appeal to 12 years. He was released on 13 January 2012 as part of a mass presidential pardon of political prisoners.

International recognition

In 2010, Nay Phone Latt was awarded the

, which honors "writers who have fought courageously in the face of adversity for the right to freedom of expression". In 2012, he participated in the International Writing Program's Fall Residency at the University of Iowa in Iowa City, IA.

Political career

He successfully ran for a seat in

parliament In modern politics, and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government. Generally, a modern parliament has three functions: representing the electorate, making laws, and overseeing the government via hearings and inquiries. Th ...

in 2015 general elections from

National League for Democracy The National League for Democracy ( my, အမျိုးသား ဒီမိုကရေစီ အဖွဲ့ချုပ်, ; abbr. NLD; Burmese abbr. ဒီချုပ်) is a liberal democratic political party in Myanmar (Burma). It ...

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Nay Phone Latt 1980 births Living people Burmese bloggers Burmese democracy activists International Writing Program alumni