Myanmar Arrests Three Journalists Over Report Critical of Government

October 10th, 2018  •  Author:   The Globe Post  •  2 minute read

Rights groups criticized the detention of the reporters from Eleven Media, the latest in a long series of cases brought against the media under vague and outdated laws.

In the latest case to spark concern over press freedom, Myanmar police on Wednesday arrested three journalists after their paper criticized the financial management of Aung San Suu Kyi’s government.

Rights groups criticized the detention of the reporters from Eleven Media, the latest in a long series of cases brought against the media under vague and outdated laws.

Executive editors Kyaw Zaw Lin and Nayi Min and chief reporter Phyo Wai Win were hauled in before a Yangon court in handcuffs on Wednesday morning to hear the charges against them before being carted off to jail.

Defense lawyer Kyee Myint told AFP the case was filed over an article published Monday about the funding behind the city’s bus network, a scheme run by Yangon chief minister Phyo Min Thein.

“All three of them were sent to Insein prison this morning after a case was filed against them under section 505(b),” Myint said.

The trio could be fined and jailed for up to two years if a court rules that their story was published with intent to cause – or was likely to cause – “fear or alarm to the public.”

Their arrest is an “affront to press freedom” and a sign the government is “close to becoming an authoritarian regime,” Ravi R. Prasad from the Vienna-based International Press Institute said.

“The whole media industry is under threat,” said Hlaing Thit Zin Wai, founder of the Protection Committee for Myanmar Journalists.

“I even have a bag packed at home as we cannot predict when it will be our turn,” he added.

The arrests came just a few weeks after the sentencing of two Reuters journalists to seven years in jail at the end of what was widely seen as a sham trial, during which a police officer testified that they had been set up.

Wa Lone, 32, and Kyaw Soe Oo, 28, had been investigating the extrajudicial killing of Rohingya men during a violent military crackdown last year against the stateless minority.

The next hearing will be on October 17.

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