He Used His Poetry To Speak Out Against Myanmar s Coup. It May Have Cost Him His Life
Wednesday, June 9, 2021
Myanmar poet Khet Thi died in police custody early last month. Authorities said he died because of heart disease, his widow Chaw Su says. But they just beat his head in.
File photo
CHIANG RAI, Thailand Khet Thi made cakes, ice cream and poetry. The latter may have cost him his life.
He died in police custody in Myanmar early last month. The authorities say the cause was heart failure. His widow says he was beaten to death.
A civil engineer by training, the 43-year-old quit his civil service job in the central Myanmar town of Shwebo in 2012 and opened a cake and ice cream shop to support his poetry.
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Before he was killed, Khet Thi's poems railed eloquently against Myanmar's sudden coup, joining a deluge of protest verse celebrating democracy demonstrators and defying the military's brutal war on words. As soldiers unleashed a violent crackdown on resistance to the army takeover, he implored the public to stand firm against what he saw as an existential threat to the country's future. "We have to fight to win this battle," he wrote. "If we.