Abrar Hussain: Myan-mar has received worldwide condemnation after it handed down a 7-year jail sentence to two Reuters journalists while they were investigating a massacre of Rohingya Muslims. Reuters has condemned it as a travesty of justice and severe blow to press freedom in the south-east Asian country.
Wa Lone, 32, and Kyaw Soe Oo, 28, were found guilty on Monday of breaching the Official Secrets Act, under laws introduced in 1923 under British rule.
They have been held in prison since December, when they were arrested while reporting on an alleged killings of 10 Rohingya at the hands of soldiers and Buddhist villagers in Inn Din, a village in the north of Rakhine state.
The sentences, as well as the lack of condemnation from Aung San Suu Syi, have led to further backlash.
“I have no fear. I have not done anything wrong … I believe in justice, democracy and freedom,” said Wa Lone, one of the reporters, as he was led to a police van in handcuffs. The other reporter, Kyaw Soe Oo hugged his sobbing wife until police took him away.
Michelle Bachelet, the new UN human rights chief, said she was shocked by the case, and called for the two men’s unconditional release, calling the trial ‘a travesty of justice.’
“Their conviction follows a legal process that clearly breached international standards. It sends a message to all journalists in Myanmar that they cannot operate fearlessly, but must rather make a choice to either self-censor or risk prosecution.”
Reuters condemned the verdict as “a major step backwards” for Myanmar.
“Today is a sad day for Myanmar, Reuters journalists Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo, and the press everywhere,” the editor-in-chief, Stephen J Adler, said in a statement, and urgently called for Myanmar to review the decision.
In a tweet, the UK foreign secretary Jeremy Hunt said he would be raising the issue when he travelled to Myanmar shortly.
“Imprisoning journalists who write about inconvenient truths is an unconscionable blow to press freedom – and indeed everyone’s freedom.” Hunt is expected to meet Aung San Suu Kyi.
¬-Source: Reuters