Wa Lone, 32, and Kyaw Soe Oo, 28, were detained last December after a late-night meeting with police officers
HONG KONG — A Myanmar judge on Monday found two Reuters journalists guilty of violating a colonial-era secrets law and sentenced them to seven years in prison after a months-long trial that was widely seen as farcical and a severe blow for press freedom in the country.
Wa Lone, 32, and Kyaw Soe Oo, 28, were detained last December after a late-night meeting with police officers who handed them documents in what has been described by defence attorneys and press watchdogs as a case of entrapment. Other officers arrested the journalists shortly after, claiming the documents were secret, and held them incommunicado for weeks.
They were charged with a violation of the Official Secrets Act, a colonial-era law that press watchdogs say has been used to muzzle independent reporting and carries a maximum of 14 years in prison.
In a statement announcing his ruling, Ye Lwin, the judge presiding over the case, said the two journalists possessed “top secret documents” and planned to share it with others, including insurgent groups in Myanmar’s Rakhine state.
Khin Maung Zaw, a lawyer for the pair, described the assertion as ridiculous, but said the government’s message was clear: “Hold your tongues, don’t say anything, don’t be inquisitive.”
Defence attorneys will appeal the decision, he said.
The journalists have pleaded not guilty and have repeatedly said they were merely doing their jobs. At the time of their arrest, the two were reporting on the killing of 10 Rohingya Muslim men and boys in a village in Rakhine.
As the judge read his statement and the verdict, Chit Su Win, Kyaw Soe Oo’s wife, leaned into the lap of the person next to her and sobbed.
“I really expected that they would be released, and we’d return home together,” said Chit Su Win, speaking to reporters. “I have no idea why the judge decided to put them in jail for doing nothing wrong.”
In the brief moment before he was hauled back to prison by police, Kyaw Soe Oo told reporters, “We do not agree with the ruling, we did what we had to do as journalists.”
“To my family members, please stay strong for us, as we are not giving up,” he added.
The verdict prompted widespread condemnation from the international community and human rights groups.
To my family members, please stay strong for us, as we are not giving up
“The clear flaws in this case raise serious concerns about rule of law and judicial independence in Myanmar,” said a statement from the U. S. Embassy that also called it a “major setback” in expanding democracy in the country.
The U. N.’s resident and humanitarian coordinator in Myanmar, Knut Ostby, said the United Nations was “disappointed by today’s court decision” and “urged the authorities to respect their right to pursue freedom of expression and information.”
Speaking after the verdict, Kevin Krolicki, Reuters Asia regional editor, said it was a “dark moment and a deeply disappointing result.” In a statement, Reuters editor in chief Stephen J. Adler said the decision was a “major step backward in Myanmar’s transition to democracy.”
“We will not wait while Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo suffer this injustice and will evaluate how to proceed in the coming days, including whether to seek relief in an international forum,” Adler added.
Myanmar’s government, Krolicki said, still has an opportunity to “do the right thing” and free the journalists. In Myanmar, the president’s office has the power to pardon those convicted of a crime.
Myanmar’s president, Win Myint, was handpicked for the job by de facto leader and Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi. She wields power over the civilian government, and observers say that any decision to pardon the two will likely come from her. However, Suu Kyi has not spoken up for press freedom or for the two journalists.
In a June interview with Japanese broadcaster NHK, she said they were arrested “because they broke the Official Secret Act” and that their case has gone on in “accordance with due process.”
In private, she has been even more stark. When Bill Richardson, a former U. S. ambassador to the United Nations and governor of New Mexico, and a friend of Suu Kyi’s, brought up the journalists’ case in his role as a member of an advisory commission her government formed, she “exploded” at him, he said in an interview.
“She said it was about the Official Secrets Act, not about Rakhine, and that this wasn’t our charter,” Richardson said. “We had a real confrontation.”
The case and its verdict have been widely condemned by critics in the international community who see them as evidence that journalists remain vulnerable and potential targets in Myanmar despite the political changes of the past several years. U. S. officials, including Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Nikki Haley, ambassador to the United Nations, have called for the release of the journalists and for all charges against them to be dropped.
“The right to freedom of expression is not guaranteed — it is conditional on not challenging the government or the military, on not crossing their red lines,” said Thomas Kean, Wa Lone’s former editor at the Myanmar Times and editor in chief of Frontier Myanmar, an English-language magazine. “If you do, they will go after you, and there are always laws on hand that can be dusted off and used.”
Authorities have made a show of dragging the journalists, handcuffed and flanked by dozens of police officers, to court for weekly proceedings, sometimes hastily pushing Wa Lone back into a police van when he tries to address reporters present.
“I have no fear. We have no fear. We know what we did — it was just to get information (for our reporting),” said Wa Lone after the guilty verdict, surrounded by a throng of journalists and photographers, before he was once again hastily pushed back into a police van and brought to Yangon’s notorious Insein prison. The judge’s assertion that they were planning to share the documents with militant groups is “ridiculous,” he said.
Myanmar has responded harshly to those who challenge the official narrative that government forces were simply responding to militants by embarking on a massive operation in Rakhine last August, sending almost 900,000 mostly Rohingya Muslims fleeing to Bangladesh.
Everybody can now see, this is Myanmar
A U. N. report last week asserted that the military’s actions were genocidal and called on Myanmar military leaders, including the commander in chief, to be investigated and prosecuted over war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Police officers asked the Reuters journalists to meet them over dinner on Dec. 12, where they were handed rolled up documents. Shortly after they left the restaurant, the two said they were stopped by other officers and accused of obtaining secret documents.
