Press NGO Blasts Myanmar Ruling on Prison Terms for 2 Reuters Journalists

"As the justice system clearly followed orders, in this case, we call on the country’s most senior officials, starting with government leader Aung San Suu Kyi, to free these journalists, whose only crime was to do their job. After a farcical prosecution, this outrageous verdict clearly calls into question Myanmar’s transition to democracy," RSF Secretary-General Christophe Deloire said.

The Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said on Monday it was appalled by the verdict of a Myanmar court, which sentenced two Reuters journalists, who had previously investigated violence against the Rohingya Muslim minority in Rakhine state, to seven years in prison.

READ MORE: Myanmar Court Sentences 2 Reuters Journalists to 7-Year Jail Term — Agency

According to the RSF, a police officer had testified during preliminary hearings on the two journalists' case that they had been intentionally given supposedly classified documents and then immediately arrested. The prosecution was based "solely on this trumped-up evidence," the RSF concluded.

Earlier in the day, Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo were found guilty of violating a state secrets act of Myanmar.

In September 2017, the two journalists investigated mass atrocities perpetrated by the army against the Rohingya people in the Inn Din village. The massacre was one among many episodes of persecution of the Muslim minority hundreds of thousands of whom have fled to neighboring Bangladesh.