| Saw Ba Hla Thein | |
| Native Name: | Burmese: စောဘလှသိန်း |
| Native Name Lang: | my |
| Office: | National Unity Government (NUG) representative to Japan |
| Term Start: | 1 February 2022 |
| Birth Place: | Myanmar |
| Residence: | Japan |
U Saw Ba Hla Thein (my|ဦးစောဘလှသိန်း; born 1969) is a Burmese human rights activist living in Japan. He moved to Japan in October 1992 and was recognized as a refugee in 2006.[1] Since 1 February 2022, he has been the pro-democracy National Unity Government (NUG) representative to Japan.
Saw Ba Hla Thein was born in 1969. He is an ethnic Karen and he is involved in protecting the rights of the Karen people.[2]
On February 1, 2022, Saw Ba Hla Thein was appointed as the first representative of the NUG to Japan.[3] [4] [5]
On September 9, pro-democracy Burmese residents in Japan led by Saw Ba Hla Thein visited the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs and addressed Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi. They submitted a request to not let the Burmese military government attend the scheduled funeral of the late Shinzo Abe.[6] On September 22, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced the planned attendees for the state funeral, and it became clear that the self-proclaimed head of state and self-proclaimed ministers of the military government would not be attending, as requested.[7] [8] No NUG representatives, including the representative office of the National Unity Government (NUG) in Japan, also attended the funeral.[9]