Win Ko Ko Latt (Burmese: ဝင်းကိုကိုလတ်; born 16 June 1982), also known as Thakin Gyi (Burmese: သခင်ကြီး), is a Burmese ultranationalist, Buddhist nationalist, legal advisor, writer, and leader of the anti-Rohingya movement in Myanmar. He is the former chairman of the Myanmar National Network, a faction of the Ma Ba Tha.[1][2]

Win Ko Ko Latt
ဝင်းကိုကိုလတ်
Born (1982-06-16) June 16, 1982 (age 42)
Htantabin, Myanmar
NationalityBurmese
EducationBachelor of Law (LL.B)
Alma materUniversity of Distance Education, Yangon
Occupations
  • Activist
  • legal advisor
  • writer
  • politician
Known forNationalism

Early life and education

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Win Ko Ko Latt was born on 16 June 1982 in Htantabin Township, Yangon Region, Myanmar.[3] He graduated with a law degree from the University of Distance Education, Yangon.

Career and movement

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Win Ko Ko Latt is an ultra-nationalist, leading many nationalist protests in Myanmar.[4] He has served as the chairman of Myanmar National Network, an organization which is closely related to the Committee for the Protection of nationality and religion.[5][1]

On July 10, 2017, Win Ko Ko Latt led monks and nationalist activists in a protest against in front of the United States Embassy against a statement made by the embassy;[6] the protestors insisted there were no Rohingya in Myanmar.[7] Win Ko Ko Latt, four other nationalist leaders (Thet Myo Oo, Nay Win Aung, and Naing Win Tun), and three monks (U Par Mauk Kha, U Nyarna Dhamma, and U Thu Seikta) were arrested for staging a protest against the terminology of "Rohingya community" at the US embassy. The group used the phrase "Muslim community in Rakhine State" to refer to self-identifying Rohingya in the region. All were prosecuted by Police Captain Thein Han at Kamayut Court on 17 August 2017.[8][9][10] Win Ko Ko Latt and the four other nationalists were sentenced to six months in Insein Prison by the Bahan Township Court, but no mention was made of the three monks.[11][12]

In the 2015 election, he contested for the House of Representatives seat from the Pantanaw township constituency, Ayeyarwady Region, but lost to Mahn Nyunt Thein, a National League for Democracy candidate.[5]

References

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  1. ^ a b Kyaw Min, Aung (29 February 2016). "Nationalists warn NLD on constitution". Myanmar Times. Archived from the original on 7 November 2017. Retrieved 19 March 2021.
  2. ^ May Sitt Paing (6 September 2017). "Nationalist Activists Sentenced to Six Months in Prison". The Irrawaddy. Retrieved 1 November 2017.
  3. ^ "အမျိုးသားရေးလှုပ်ရှားသူလို့ ခံယူထားသူတွေကို ဖမ်းဆီးလိုက်ပြီ". Frontier Myanmar. 12 May 2017.
  4. ^ Ye Lynn, Kyaw (18 May 2016). "Series of anti-'Rohyinga' protests planned in Myanmar". Anadolu Agency News. Retrieved 19 March 2021.
  5. ^ a b Kyaw Min, Aung (27 October 2015). "Nationalist candidates fight for votes without party backing". Myanmar Times. Archived from the original on 7 November 2017. Retrieved 19 March 2021.
  6. ^ U.S. Mission Burma (20 April 2016). "US Embassy's Statement on the Recent Events in Rakhine State". U.S. Embassy in Burma. Retrieved 19 March 2021.
  7. ^ Doyle, David (29 April 2016). "'No Rohingya': Behind the US Embassy Protest in Myanmar". The Diplomat. Retrieved 19 March 2021.
  8. ^ "အမေရိကန်သံရုံးရှေ့ဆန္ဒပြသည့် ဝင်းကိုကိုလတ်ပါ ၃ ဦးအမှုကို ဇူလိုင် ၇ရက်တွင်ထပ်မံရုံးချိန်းပေး". Mizzima News (in Burmese). 28 June 2017. Retrieved 1 November 2017.
  9. ^ Pyae Phyoe Aung (18 August 2017). "Four in court over US embassy protest". Weekly Eleven. Archived from the original on 7 November 2017. Retrieved 1 November 2017.
  10. ^ Htun Khaing (2 June 2017). "Protestors blockade Kamaryut court as nationalist trial continues". Frontier Myanmar. Retrieved 1 November 2017.
  11. ^ Kyaw Min, Aung (29 September 2017). "Embassy protesters jailed". The Myanmar Times.
  12. ^ "Nationalist Activists Sentenced to Six Months in Prison". The Irrawaddy. 6 September 2017.
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