Myanmar prosecutors announced that they had seek charges against two Reuters reporters for allegedly violating state secrets after half a year. A court in Yangon has ruled that the controversial case can proceed that means Wa Lone, 32, and Kyaw Soe Oo, 28, will stand trial.
Prosecutors say the journalists illegally obtained confidential government documents in the course of their reporting. When two Reuters journalists had been investigating allegations of one such atrocity, the Sept. 2 massacre of 10 Rohingya men, when they were arrested late last year.
Still the arrest failed to quash their story, which Reuters eventually published as a special report in February. Unlike most stories on the crisis to date, theirs drew not on victim accounts, but primarily on interviews with local Buddhist villagers and Myanmar soldiers who claimed to have taken part in the killing and grave-digging.
Also in an unusual move, the Myanmar military issued a statement acknowledging that the killings took place — doing so the same day that Reuters published its story, complete with images of the 10 bloodied bodies piled into a single shallow grave immediately after their murder.
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Among the brutal details in the Reuters report was an incident explained by Soe Chay, a retired soldier and local Buddhist villager who had been enlisted by security forces to dig the victims’ grave.
The journalists were in prison when their reporting finally saw the light of day. And there they have remained, behind bars, as international advocacy groups for free speech and journalism applauded their work with several awards and leveled condemnations at the Myanmar government.
Next Monday, the journalists’ formal trial is set to begin. And their lawyer says his clients are determined to maintain their optimism.
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