Sex At Holy Site: Myanmar Hunts For Italian Couple That Shot Porn Video

There are certain places where certain things should not be done and one of them is to enter another country and shoot a pornographic video at a sacred site. But now, a porn video showing exactly that has drawn the attention of Myanmar authorities who want to arrest the featured couple and anyone else associated with the incident.

The sacred site is Bagan that lies on the central plain of Myanmar. It is an ancient city and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. From the 9th to the 13th centuries, it was the capital city of the Pagan Kingdom and over 3,800 temples and pagodas have survived to the present day. It is a place of importance to Buddhists everywhere, but most of all those in Myanmar.

Myanmar authorities are making efforts to first identify and then administer justice to the couple, two foreigners who described themselves (presumably in the video) as a 23-year-old Italian couple. Filming their sexual encounter in a pagoda in Bagan and uploading it to a porn site soon caused considerable outrage in the predominantly Buddhist country.

• U Aung Aung Kyaw, director of Bagan Archaeology at the Ministry of Religious Affairs and Culture, said his office filed a complaint to the police to find the culprits. He said they face a penalty of up to two years imprisonment and added that they may have already left Myanmar.
• Another official from the Ministry of Hotels and Tourism in Bagan said, "It is difficult to find them. We cannot know when it happened. We sent their photo to every hotel to look for them."
• U Kyaw Swa Min, CEO of Golden Lotus Tours, wants the culprits to be tried in absentia after they are identified. “This was done deliberately,” he said. “We cannot sit idly by. We have to prevent this from happening again.”
• U Thura Aung, secretary of Myanmar Archaeology Research, called for the formation of teams made up of police to prevent such acts. He said, "We need to establish a heritage police team in every heritage site. Every tourist has to follow the country's laws and culture.”
• Daw Aye Nyein Thu, a tourist guide, complained on social media that the video pointed to lax management and weak security at the site.

In recent years, Myanmar has been quite strict to punish lesser offenses at religious sites. A Spanish tourist was deported in 2016 over a tattoo of Buddha that was noticed by some monks. In February, two Chinese tourists were levied a fine for drinking beer after driving to the Bagan heritage hill.

IN 2017 another couple posted a photo on social media of one of them posing unclothed behind a pagoda. It is not known if they faced any consequences from the image.