Myanmar court to hear Reuters reporters appeal

YANGON, Myanmar – A Myanmar court will hear the appeal later this month of two Reuters journalists jailed for their reporting on the Rohingya crisis, a lawyer said Saturday, December 8.

Wa Lone, 32, and Kyaw Soe Oo, 28, were found guilty under a state secrets act in September after exposing the extrajudicial killing of 10 Rohingya men during a brutal military crackdown in Myanmar’s western Rakhine state last year.

The pair – who have been held behind bars for nearly a year since their arrest last December – were sentenced to 7 years in jail, a verdict that drew widespread condemnation, including from US Vice President Mike Pence.

Lawyer Than Zaw Aung told Agence France-Presse the date for the appeal hearing has been set for December 24 at the Yangon regional court.

“It is difficult to say how long the appeal can take,” he said, estimating that it would run for “at least two weeks,” but could stretch to months.

“We are hoping for their unconditional release.”

The reporters will remain in prison during the appeal process.

The pair were investigating the massacre of 10 Rohingya men by security forces in Inn Din village, an atrocity that the military later admitted in a rare acknowledgement of wrongdoing.

And as the much-criticized trial was being held, one whistleblowing police officer told the court how a superior had ordered his men to set up a sting to entrap the reporters – testimony the judge chose to ignore.

Myanmar’s civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi has remained defiant in the face of criticism and insisted the case upheld the rule of law – further tarnishing her image as a democracy icon after her silence over the military’s actions against the Rohingya Muslims.

UN investigators have called for senior military generals to be prosecuted for genocide over their handling of the Rohingya crisis, in which more than 720,000 people were forcibly expelled to neighboring Bangladesh’s refugee camps. – Rappler.com