Myanmar govt says case against scribes can proceed
YANGON: Myanmar’s civilian President Htin Kyaw, a close ally of government leader Aung San Suu Kyi, has authorised the police to proceed with a case against two detained Reuters reporters accused of violating the country’s colonial-era Official Secrets Act, a senior government spokesman said.
Journalists Wa Lone, 31, and Kyaw Soe Oo, 27, were arrested last Tuesday evening after they were invited to dine with police officers on the outskirts of Myanmar’s largest city, Yangon.
“The Ministry of Home Affairs has already submitted the case to the Office of the President,” Zaw Htay, spokesman for Aung San Suu Kyi, said by phone late on Sunday. He added that the president’s office had given approval for the case to go ahead.
Zaw Htay could not be reached on Monday to clarify whether Htin Kyaw or Suu Kyi had been personally involved in the decision, or if other officials had signed off on the president’s behalf.
Suu Kyi, head of the ruling National League for Democracy (NLD), is barred from the presidency under a constitution written by the military. But she effectively runs the country in the role of “state counsellor”.
Approval from the president’s office is needed before court proceedings can begin in a case brought under the Official Secrets Act. Section 13 of the Act states: “No Court shall take cognizance of any offence under this Act unless upon complaint made by order of, or under authority from, the President of the Union.”
A number of governments, including the United States, Canada and Britain, and United Nations’ Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, as well as Reuters Editor-in-Chief Stephen J Adler and a host of journalists’ and human rights’ groups have criticised the arrests as an attack on press freedom and called on Myanmar to release the two men.
Zaw Htay said the journalists’ legal rights were being respected. “Your reporters are protected by the rule of the law,” he said. “All I can say is the government can guarantee the rule of law.”
But two senior figures in the NLD on Monday joined the criticism of how the two men are being treated.
Nyan Win, a member of the NLD’s central executive committee and one of Suu Kyi’s defence lawyers during her years of house arrest under junta rule, said it was “unfair” that the families of Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo were not allowed to contact them or be told where they are being held. HONG KONG: The doctor at the helm of a Hong Kong beauty clinic that administered a deadly experimental cancer therapy was jailed for 12 years on Monday, reports said.
Patient Chan Yuen-lam, 46, died a week after she received a blood infusion at the clinic in 2012, an unprecedented medical blunder that has shed light on the city’s largely unregulated beauty industry.
Chan had signed up for the unproven therapy using CIK cells, touted as an immunity boost by beauty chain DR Group and sold at HK$59,500 ($7,615) per injection, local media reports said.
Bacterial levels in Chan’s blood before she died were comparable to those of terminally ill Aids patients, according to a doctor who testified during the trial.
Beauty clinics in Hong Kong offer a wide range of treatments, many with little or no scientific backing, and often operate under little oversight. — AFP CHITTAGONG: Ten people were killed and dozens injured in a stampede on Monday after tens of thousands of people gathered for a funeral feast in Bangladesh’s southern city of Chittagong, police said.
Mohiuddin Chowdhury, a senior politician of the ruling Awami League party and a three-term mayor of the country’s second largest city, died on Friday. He was 73.
Police staged baton charges to clear the crowd who packed community centres for the afternoon feast commemorating a popular former city mayor.
Police and hospital staff said they feared the death toll could rise.
“So far we can confirm the death toll of 10 men,” city police chief Iqbal Bahar said, adding it appeared to be an “accident”.
“The death toll could rise as 15 people are critically injured,” said another police official, Mohammad Alauddin. — AFP