Myanmar: Detained journalists to be charged under colonial-era law
Posted: Wed Jun 28, 2017 4:46 pm
- Three Myanmar reporters detained at an undisclosed location by the army will be charged under a colonial-era statute against “unlawful association” and face up to three years in jail, government and army officials have said.
The military arrested the journalists in Myanmar’s northeastern Shan state on Monday after they covered a drug-burning event organised by the Ta’ang National Liberation Army (TNLA), an ethnic armed group designated as an “unlawful association” by the Yangon authorities.
The reporters are from two media outlets publishing both in Burmese and English, the Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB) and the Irrawaddy. They were among the few media organisations providing independent coverage of Myanmar when it was under military rule before a democratic transition began in 2011.
The arrests alarmed Myanmar’s media community, fuelling fears that freedom of speech has become increasingly restricted since the government of Nobel peace prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi took power in April last year...
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/ ... al-era-law
The military arrested the journalists in Myanmar’s northeastern Shan state on Monday after they covered a drug-burning event organised by the Ta’ang National Liberation Army (TNLA), an ethnic armed group designated as an “unlawful association” by the Yangon authorities.
The reporters are from two media outlets publishing both in Burmese and English, the Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB) and the Irrawaddy. They were among the few media organisations providing independent coverage of Myanmar when it was under military rule before a democratic transition began in 2011.
The arrests alarmed Myanmar’s media community, fuelling fears that freedom of speech has become increasingly restricted since the government of Nobel peace prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi took power in April last year...
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/ ... al-era-law