Parents of jailed ‘Buddha bar’ manager fear for his health

01 April 2015
Parents of jailed ‘Buddha bar’ manager fear for his health
Philip Blackwood with his fiance Noemi Almo. Photo: campaign

The parents of Philip Blackwood, jailed for posting an image of Buddha with headphones to promote his Yangon bar, say they fear for his health as he has to endure “appalling conditions” in the notorious Insein Prison in Myanmar.
Brian and Angela Blackwood told ABC News they fear for the health of their son, sentenced to two years hard labour, who is forced to sleep on a wooden pallet.
"He sleeps on a wooden pallet, no bedding is allowed, no mattress, no pillow,” his father told ABC News.
VGastro manager U Htut Ko Ko Lwin and bar owner U Tun Thurein also face the same sentence and the same prison conditions.
"We did manage, after about 50 days, to get a blanket to him so that he could actually have something to lay on, and then later on we managed to get him another blanket so that he could fold it up and use it as a pillow,” Mr Brian Blackwood told ABC News.
"He has a hole in the ground for a toilet and he has a bucket of water that he washes in, keeps himself tidy with. I don't believe that we understand half of what he is suffering."
Blackwood’s fiancé, Noemi Almo, and their seven-month-old daughter, can visit him once a fortnight, his father said.
Support campaigns have been set up for Mr Blackwood.
Catherine MacGillivray said she had set up the campaign on because she had been friends with Mr Blackwood for over 15 years.
“Phil would do the same thing for me if I was in trouble. He has a young family and I want him to come home and see his daughter grow up,” she said on the campaign site.
Mr Blackwood told the court during the trial that he was sorry for posting the image of Buddha with headphones and that he had quickly taken the image down.