Journalists to don black over arrest of reporters

The Reuters’ journalists disappeared on Tuesday evening after they were invited to dine with Burmese police officers.

A group of Myanmar journalists said they would begin wearing black T-shirts on Saturday in protest at the detention of two Reuters reporters accused of violating the country’s Official Secrets Act, as pressure builds on Myanmar to release the pair.

The Protection Committee for Myanmar Journalists, a group of local reporters who have demonstrated against past prosecutions of journalists, decried the “unfair arrests that affect media freedom”. In a statement on Facebook, the committee said its members would don black T-shirts “to signify the dark age of media freedom” in Myanmar. They demanded the unconditional and immediate release of the two reporters, Wa Lone, 31, and Kyaw Soe Oo, 27.

“Journalists all over the country are urged to take part in the Black Campaign,” the group said.

The Protection Committee for Myanmar Journalists was formed in response to the arrest in June of a newspaper editor over the publication of a cartoon that made fun of the military, said video journalist A Hla Lay Thu Zar - one of the group’s 21-member executive committee. “A reporter must have the right to get information and write news ethically,” said A Hla Lay Thu Zar in reference to the case of the two Reuters’ journalists.

Myo Nyunt, deputy director for Myanmar’s Ministry of Information, told Reuters the case had nothing to do with press freedom.

“It’s related to the Official Secrets Act,” he said. “Journalists should be able to tell what is secret and what is not... We already have press freedom. There’s freedom to write and speak... There’s press freedom if you follow the rules.” The journalists disappeared on Tuesday evening after they were invited to dine with police officers on the outskirts of Myanmar’s largest city, Yangon.

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, UN SecretaryGeneral Antonio Guterres, the President of the European Parliament Antonio Tajani, and government officials from Canada, Britain, Sweden, and Bangladesh, have all called for their release.