Journalists held for illegal drone use freed

MYANMAR: Two journalists and their two local staff were released from a Myanmar prison yesterday, two months after their arrest for allegedly flying a drone over the parliament.

Singaporean Lau Hon Meng and Malaysian Mok Choy Lin were working for Turkish state broadcaster TRT when they were arrested on October 27 in the capital, Naypitaw.

A court on Thursday dropped additional charges against them, their local interpreter Aung Naing Soe and driver Hla Tin.

They had been scheduled for release on January 5 after serving a two-month prison sentence for illegally flying a drone but were freed early.

Their lawyer Khin Maung Zaw said that authorities dropped more serious charges of importing a drone without permission and immigration violations against the foreigners after concluding they did not intent to endanger national security.

Authorities also wanted to maintain good diplomatic relations with the countries of the two journalists, he said.

In a separate case on Thursday, a court extended the detention of two Reuters journalists and set their trial for January 10 on charges of violating state secrets.

Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo were arrested December 12 for acquiring ‘‘important secret papers’' from two policemen. The officers had worked in Rakhine state, where abuses widely blamed on the military have driven more than 630,000 Rohingya Muslims to flee into neighbouring Bangladesh.

Rights and media groups have criticised the new civilian government for continuing to use colonial-era laws to threaten and imprison journalists.