Reuters Journos face court in Mayanmar

YANGON: Two Reuters journalists were formally charged by police in a Myanmar court yesterday with breaching a colonial-era secrecy law that carries up to 14 years in jail, provoking a barrage of calls for their immediate release, reports AFP.

Myanmar nationals Wa Lone, 31, and Kyaw Soe Oo, 27, were arrested a month ago under the Official Secrets Act after they were allegedly given classified documents by two policemen over dinner.

The pair had been reporting on the military campaign in the northern state of Rakhine that has forced some 655,000 Rohingya Muslims to flee over the border to Bangladesh since August.

The UN and US have condemned the violence as ethnic cleansing.

The issue is incendiary inside Myanmar, where authorities deny wrongdoing and say the army was cracking down on militants from the Muslim minority.

A district judge said police charged the pair under a section of the Official Secrets Act which punishes anyone who “obtains, collects, records or publishes... any official document or information” which could be “useful to an enemy”.

 

Reuters Journos face court in Mayanmar

YANGON: Two Reuters journalists were formally charged by police in a Myanmar court yesterday with breaching a colonial-era secrecy law that carries up to 14 years in jail, provoking a barrage of calls for their immediate release, reports AFP. Myanmar nationals Wa Lone, 31, and Kyaw Soe Oo, 27, were arrested a month ago under the Official Secrets Act after they were allegedly given classified documents by two policemen over dinner. The pair had been reporting on the military campaign in the northern state of Rakhine that has forced some 655,000 Rohingya Muslims to flee over the border to Bangladesh since August. The UN and US have condemned the violence as ethnic cleansing. The issue is incendiary inside Myanmar, where authorities deny wrongdoing and say the army was cracking down on militants from the Muslim minority. A district judge said police charged the pair under a section of the Official Secrets Act which punishes anyone who obtains, collects, records or publishes... any official document or information which could be useful to an enemy.