WASHINGTON: A US body working towards defending freedom of speech today demanded that Myanmar release the two Reuters investigative journalists arrested on charges of breaching the country's Official Secrets Act.
Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo, who were working on an investigative report on the violence in Myanmar's Rakhine state, were arrested by the Yangon Police on December 12 last year.
Their reporting contributed to a Reuters expose, released in February 2018, which gave a detailed report of the pillage of Inn Din, a village in Rakhine state.
The report included an investigation into the execution of 10 Muslim Rohingya men by the military, which had later admitted to the killings in January.
"Given the lack of relevant evidence brought forward in the pre-trial period, and the testimony suggesting police entrapped Reuters journalists Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo, the Myanmar courts face an important opportunity to uphold the value of a free press by dropping the case and immediately releasing the two reporters," PEN America said in a statement.
The journalists have spent over six months in detention since their initial arrest, facing weekly pre-trial hearings before a judge to decide whether the state has sufficient evidence to pursue this case in trial.
Summer Lopez, Senior Director of Free Expression Programs at PEN America, said if the court chooses to press charges against Lone and Soe Oo, "it will be a clear signal to the world that freedom of the press in Myanmar is in grave danger".
In February, PEN America honoured the two journalists with the 2018 PEN/Barbey Freedom to Write Award, conferred annually, which recognises an imprisoned writer or writers targeted for exercising freedom of speech.