Profiles of two Reuters journalists detained by Myanmar, where a verdict is expected Monday

Record ID: 1354503

  • Title: Profiles of two Reuters journalists detained by Myanmar, where a verdict is expected Monday
  • Date: 24th August 2018
  • Summary: YANGON, MYANMAR (FILE - FEBRUARY 14, 2018) (REUTERS) KYAW SOE OO AND WA LONE, IN HANDCUFF, BEING ESCORTED INTO COURT ROOM POLICE OFFICER STANDING IN FRONT OF COURT ROOM EXTERIOR OF INSEIN COURT Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo, accused of violating the country's Official Secrets Act arrived at the Insein Court in Yangon on February 14 as their court hearing continues. The Reuters i
  • Embargoed: 7th September 2018 11:54
  • Keywords: Arrested Reuters reporters Wa Lone Kyaw Soe Oo Myanmar press freedom Official Secrets Act children's book
  • Location: YANGON, UNKNOWN LOCATIONS, MYANMAR / INTERNET / NEW YORK, UNITED STATES
  • City: YANGON, UNKNOWN LOCATIONS, MYANMAR / INTERNET / NEW YORK, UNITED STATES
  • Country: Myanmar
  • Topics: Crime/Law/Justice,Judicial Process/Court Cases/Court Decisions
  • Reuters ID: LVA0098UKNGP1
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: A Myanmar court is due to deliver a verdict on Monday (September 3) in the trial of two Reuters reporters jailed in Myanmar on accusations of obtaining secret state documents in a case seen as a test of press freedom in the fledgling democracy.
    The delivery of the verdict was postponed by a week as the judge overseeing the case was sick, a court official said on August 27, the date set by the judge after hearing closing arguments from both sides, during which lawyers for the two journalists said they had been "trapped" by police in an effort to interfere with their reporting of a massacre of Rohingya Muslims.
    Reporters Wa Lone, 32, and Kyaw Soe Oo, 28, were charged on July 9, 2018 for breaching the colonial-era Official Secrets Act which carries a maximum penalty of 14 years in prison.
    On December 12, Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo were detained by Myanmar police after being handed an enveloped document, their lawyer said.
    Their lawyer, Than Zaw Aung, who has been retained by Reuters, said the two had only been doing their job as journalists.
    The two were working on the crisis in the western state of Rakhine, where an estimated 700,000 Rohingya Muslims have fled from a fierce military crackdown on militants.
    Following are the profiles of the two journalists.
    WA LONE
    Wa Lone grew up in Kin Pyit, a village of some 400 households in the Shwe Bo district north of Mandalay, on Myanmar's dry central plain between the mighty Irrawaddy and Chindwin rivers.
    One of five children, his parents were rice farmers and they had little money. His mother died from cancer when he was young.
    But he was a good student, according to friends and family, and took a keen interest in news reporting from an early age.
    In December 2010, having saved a little money, the brothers moved back to Yangon, where Wa Lone could pursue his boyhood dream. Living in North Okklapa township, near the city's airport, they re-established their photo services business, while Wa Lone also enrolled in a media training school and later began taking English classes.
    Within five or six months Wa Lone had landed his first job in journalism on the weekly People's Age in Yangon, where his editor was Pe Myint - now Myanmar's Minister of Information.
    In 2014, he joined the English-language daily, Myanmar Times, covering the historic 2015 general election that swept Nobel peace prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi to power. The paper's former editor, Thomas Kean, says he felt he had to hire him when they met because he clearly cared deeply about journalism and was also thoughtful and articulate.
    As well as providing a platform for him to excel as a journalist, the two years he spent at the Myanmar Times was a significant period in Wa Lone's personal life - it was there that he met his wife Pan Ei Mon who works in the paper's sales department. The couple married in April last year and were expecting a child.
    Despite the long hours chasing stories and studying, Wa Lone has still found time to write a children's book, The Gardener, a story in Burmese and English with an environmental message that draws on his own rural roots.
    He co-founded The Third Story Project, a charitable foundation that produces and distributes stories that aim to promote tolerance between Myanmar's different ethnic groups, and is involved in projects working with orphans.
    Many of his weekends off have been spent visiting poor rural villages - much like the one where he grew up.
    Wa Lone joined Reuters in July 2016 and quickly made his mark with in-depth stories on sensitive subjects including land grabs by the powerful military and the murder of prominent politician Ko Ni, as well as uncovering evidence of killings by soldiers in the northeast.
    His reporting on the crisis that erupted in north-western Rakhine state in October 2016 won him a joint honourable mention from the Society of Publishers in Asia in its annual awards.
    KYAW SOE OO
    Family and friends of Kyaw Soe Oo say he has always had a love of writing, and composed poetry before becoming a journalist.
    Min Min, the founder of the Root Investigative Agency, where Kyaw Soe Oo worked after starting his reporting career with the online Rakhine Development News, described the 27-year-old as "a joyful person" who had many friends.
    An ethnic Rakhine Buddhist, Kyaw Soe Oo grew up in the state capital Sittwe, and was one of five siblings.
    For Reuters, Kyaw Soe Oo worked on an investigative story about Myanmar's plan to harvest the crops of Rohingya farmers who fled to Bangladesh, and reported on how some Buddhists were enforcing local-level segregation in central Rakhine.
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