{"id":1791,"date":"2018-09-03T16:20:00","date_gmt":"2018-09-03T09:20:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.amnesty.or.th\/en\/myanmar-guilty-verdict-against-reuters-journalists-sends-stark-warning-on-press-freedom\/"},"modified":"2024-10-21T14:23:47","modified_gmt":"2024-10-21T07:23:47","slug":"myanmar-guilty-verdict-against-reuters-journalists-sends-stark-warning-on-press-freedom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.amnesty.or.th\/en\/news\/2018\/09\/myanmar-guilty-verdict-against-reuters-journalists-sends-stark-warning-on-press-freedom\/","title":{"rendered":"Myanmar: Guilty verdict against Reuters journalists sends stark warning on press freedom"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Responding to the news that Reuters journalists, Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo, have been sentenced to seven years in jail after being found guilty of breaching Myanmar\u2019s Official Secrets Act, Tirana Hassan, Amnesty International\u2019s Director of Crisis Response, said:&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cToday\u2019s appalling verdict has condemned two innocent men to years behind bars. Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo face lengthy jail terms simply because they dared to ask uncomfortable questions about military atrocities in Rakhine State. These convictions must be quashed, and both men immediately and unconditionally released.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThis politically-motivated decision has significant ramifications for press freedom in Myanmar. It sends a stark warning to other journalists in the country of the severe consequences that await should they look too closely at military abuses. This amounts to censorship through fear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cToday\u2019s verdict cannot conceal the truth of what happened in Rakhine State. It\u2019s thanks to the bravery of journalists like Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo, that the military\u2019s atrocities have been exposed. Instead of targeting these two journalists, the Myanmar authorities should have been going after those responsible for killings, rape, torture and the torching of hundreds of Rohingya villages.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Background<\/strong>&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo were arrested in Yangon, Myanmar\u2019s main city, on 12 December 2017. At the time, the two men had been investigating military operations in northern Rakhine State. These operations were&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.amnesty.org\/en\/documents\/asa16\/8630\/2018\/en\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">marked by crimes against humanity targeting the Rohingya population<\/a>, including deportation, unlawful killings, rape, torture and burning of homes and villages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The two journalists were held incommunicado for two weeks before being transferred to Yangon\u2019s Insein prison. The Official Secrets Act \u2013 one of a<a href=\"https:\/\/www.amnesty.org\/en\/documents\/asa16\/3430\/2016\/en\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">number of repressive laws in Myanmar<\/a>&nbsp;\u2013 carries a maximum sentence of 14 years in prison.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Responding to the news that Reuters journalists, Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo, have been sentenced to seven years in jail after being found guilty of breaching Myanmar\u2019s Official Secrets Act, Tirana Hassan, Amnesty International\u2019s Director of Crisis Response, said:&nbsp; \u201cToday\u2019s appalling verdict has condemned two innocent men to years behind bars. Wa Lone and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":1792,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_yoast_wpseo_opengraph-title":"","_yoast_wpseo_opengraph-description":"","_yoast_wpseo_opengraph-image":"","_yoast_wpseo_opengraph-image-id":0,"_yoast_wpseo_twitter-title":"","_yoast_wpseo_twitter-description":"","_yoast_wpseo_twitter-image":"","_yoast_wpseo_twitter-image-id":0,"_hero_title":"","_hero_content":"","_hero_cta_text":"","_hero_cta_link":"","_hero_alignment":"","_hero_background":"","_hero_size":"","_hero_show":"","_hero_type":"","_hero_embed":"","_hero_video_id":0,"_hero_hide_image_caption":true,"_hero_hide_image_copyright":false,"_nav_style":"","_disable_share_icons":false,"_disable_sidebar":false,"_display_author_info":false,"_hide_featured_image":false,"_hide_featured_image_caption":true,"_maximize_post_content":false,"_reduce_content_width":false,"_sidebar_id":0,"_stretch_thumbnail":false,"byline_context":"","byline_entity":"","byline_is_author":false,"disable_related_content":false,"download_id":0,"download_text":"","show_published_date":true,"show_updated_date":true,"term_slider":"","amnesty_index_number":"","recipients":"","recipients_refresh":"","recipients_refreshed":"","amnesty_umbraco_data":"","document_ref":"","amnesty_updated":"","footnotes":""},"category":[1585],"location":[1588],"resourceType":[],"topic":[],"class_list":["post-1791","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","location-southeast-asia"],"datePosted":"September 3, 2018","mlpRelationships":{"1":1817,"2":1791},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amnesty.or.th\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1791","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amnesty.or.th\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amnesty.or.th\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amnesty.or.th\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amnesty.or.th\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1791"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.amnesty.or.th\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1791\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amnesty.or.th\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1792"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amnesty.or.th\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1791"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amnesty.or.th\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/category?post=1791"},{"taxonomy":"location","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amnesty.or.th\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/location?post=1791"},{"taxonomy":"resource-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amnesty.or.th\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/resourceType?post=1791"},{"taxonomy":"topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amnesty.or.th\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/topic?post=1791"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}