Jailing the news
Nearly 300 journalists are behind bars across the globe, the victims of autocrats muzzling the news. Now add two more: a pair of Reuters reporters who painstakingly documented the role of Myanmar security forces killing Rohingya villagers in a bid to rid the country of the Muslim minority group.
The sentences total seven years each for Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo, jailed since last December. Their alleged crime was possession of confidential government documents, a holdover offense from the colonial era. “We didn’t do anything wrong,” said Kyaw. After months of interrogation and isolation, “We’re not exactly shocked by the verdict,” he said.
Their treatment under- lines the hollow nature of Myanmar’s institutions, dominated by a military that ran it for decades. The country’s civilian leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, has meekly acquiesced to a bloody campaign to drive out the Rohingya, defined as ethnic cleansing by the United Nations. It was into this crucible that the Reuters team dared to enter with photographic evidence and testimony by security forces about their deadly work.
The Trump administration has sanctioned Myanmar for its operations that have forced hundreds of thousands to flee to country. The brave work of the Reuters reporters should take the White House a step further: support for independent news gathering.