Myanmar sentences pastor for defying COVID-19 orders

Pastor David Lah, a Canadian citizen born in Myanmar, held a worship service on April 7 in Yangon, the largest city in the Southeast Asian country also known as Burma. A court on Thursday convicted him of violating Myanmar’s coronavirus gathering ban and sentenced him to three months in prison. The judge applied the time Lah spent in jail awaiting a ruling against the sentence and said authorities likely will release him within a few weeks.

What does Lah say? Footage from the event showed him claiming that Christians’ faith could lead to immunity from the virus. “I can guarantee if your church is walking the true path, and you have the whole of Christ in your heart, you will not get the disease,” Lah said. After the April service, he and more than 20 attendees contracted COVID-19.

Dig deeper: Read Onize Ohikere’s report in World Tour on Lah’s arrest.