UN chief calls on Yangon to free Reuters journalists

ANDREW VANDERBURG, University of Texas astronomer TOKYO: The arrest of two Reuters journalists in Yangon this week was a signal that press freedom is shrinking in Myanmar and the international community must do all it can to get them released, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on Thursday.

Guterres said his main concern over Myanmar was the “dramatic violations of human rights” during a military crackdown in Rakhine State that forced more than 600,000 Rohingya Muslims to flee the country for southern Bangladesh, and the arrest of the journalists was probably related.

“It is clearly a concern in relation to the erosion of press freedom in the country,” he said at news conference here, referring to the detention of Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo, who had been working on stories about the strife in Rakhine State.

“And, probably the reason why these journalists were arrested is because they were reporting on what they have seen in relation to this massive human tragedy,” he added.

Myanmar’s Information Minsitry said in a statement on Wednesday that the Reuters journalists and two policemen faced charges under the British colonial-era Official Secrets Act. The 1923 law carries a maximum prison sentence of 14 years.

The reporters “illegally acquired information with the intention to share it with foreign media”, the ministry said in its statement, which was accompanied by a photo of the two reporters in handcuffs. Reuters