TIME World Burma Burma Jails New Zealander for Insulting Buddhism in Facebook Post Soe Zeya TunReuters Phil Blackwood, a bar manager from New Zealand, comes out of court after being sentenced to two and half years in prison, at Bahan township court in Yangon on March 17, 2015. Two Burmese were also jailed in what critics deem the latest instance of spiraling religious intolerance in the Southeast Asian nation

A Burmese court sentenced a New Zealand citizen and two Burmese nationals to 2 years in prison with hard labor for posting a promotional advert on social media that depicted the Buddha wearing headphones.

State prosecutors claimed the image posted last year on the Facebook page of V Gastro bar, where Phil Blackwood worked as the general manager, was an insult to the Buddhist religion.

The establishment later issued an apology for causing offense, but Blackwood, along with the bars Burmese owner Tun Thurein and manager Htut Ko Ko Lwin, were arrested on Dec. 10 and have been held in Rangoons notorious Insein Prison ever since.

Ahead of Tuesdays decision, the visibly disheveled Blackwood still appeared optimistic.

Well, hopefully a bit of justice is going to happen, Blackwood told the BBC as he was frog-marched into court by police.

Hours later, activists panned the decision that they say further erodes freedom of expression and promotes growing religious intolerance in the former military state.

That these three men acted in a culturally insensitive way by posting the Buddha with headphones image on Facebook is obvious, but that is nothing they should have been hauled into court for, much less sent to prison, said Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director of Human Rights Watch.

Burma has been rocked by myriad bouts of ethnosectarian violence pitting Buddhist extremist against the nations tiny Muslim minority since the countrys ruling military junta unveiled political reforms in late 2011.

The nationalist movement, known locally as 969, has helped bolster a growing wave of Buddhist chauvinism throughout the country. Nevertheless, over 90% of respondents to a poll conducted by local media outlet DVB said the V Gastro trio did not deserve to be jailed.

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Burma Jails New Zealander for Insulting Buddhism in Facebook Post