Journalists jailed after reporting on violent Rohingya repression

0 Myanmar journalist Wa Lone is led away by police after being sentenced over the possession of official documents while reporting on violence against Rohingya Muslims A Myanmar court has sentenced two Reuters journalists to seven years in prison for illegal possession of official documents while reporting on violence against Rohingya Muslims.

Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo had pleaded not guilty to violating the colonial-era Official Secrets Act, punishable by up to 14 years in prison, contending they were framed by police.

The verdict was postponed from a week ago because the presiding judge was ill.

The case has drawn worldwide attention as an example of how press freedom is suffering under the government of Nobel Peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi.

Wa Lone, 32, and Kyaw Soe Oo, 28, both testified they suffered from harsh treatment during their initial interrogations.

Their several appeals for release on bail were rejected.

Wa Lone’s wife, Pan Ei Mon, gave birth to the couple’s first child in Yangon on 10 August, but Wa Lone has not yet seen his daughter.

The two journalists had been reporting last year on the brutal crackdown by security forces on the Rohingya in Burma’s Rakhine state.

Some 700,000 Rohingya fled to neighbouring Bangladesh to escape the violence targeting them after attacks by Rohingya militants killed a dozen members of the security forces.

Investigators working for the UN’S top human rights body said last week that genocide charges should be brought against senior Myanmar military officers over the crackdown.

The accusation of genocide was rejected by Myanmar’s government, but is the most serious official recommendation for prosecution so far.

Also last week, Facebook banned Myanmar’s powerful military chief and 19 other individuals and organisations from its site to prevent the spread of hate and misinformation in connection with the Rohingya crisis.

Dozens of journalists and pro-democracy activists marched Saturday in Yangon, Myanmar’s biggest city, in support of the reporters.

But in the country at large, with an overwhelming Buddhist majority, there is widespread prejudice against the Rohingya, and in the government and military, there is near-xenophobic sensitivity to foreign criticism.

The UK’S ambassador said the verdict has undermined media freedom in Burma.

Dan Chugg, who was in court for the verdict and who has called for the journalists’ release, said the case has also “struck a hammer-blow to the rule of law” in the country. He said diplomats who attended the trial believe the judges ignored evidence and the laws of the land. The journalists testified they did not solicit or knowingly possess any secret documents.