Profiles of two Reuters journalists jailed in Myanmar as their lawyers file appeal

Record ID: 1363130

  • Title: Profiles of two Reuters journalists jailed in Myanmar as their lawyers file appeal
  • Date: 5th November 2018
  • Summary: YANGON, MYANMAR (FILE - DECEMBER 27, 2017) (REUTERS) VAN ARRIVING, KYAW SOE OO SEEN THROUGH WINDOW WA LONE WALKING OUT OF VAN / PAN EI MON HUGGING WA LONE / WA LONE WALKING INTO COURT JOURNALISTS WAITING OUTSIDE COURTHOUSE KYAW SOE OO AND WA LONE LEAVING COURT, WADING THROUGH MEDIA CROWD MEDIA FILMING VAN KYAW SOE OO SEEN THROUGH WINDOW OF VAN / VAN LEAVING Two Reuters journalists Wa Lone, 31, and Kyaw Soe Oo, 27, who have been detained in Myanmar were remanded in custody for a further two weeks on December 27 as a probe into allegations they breached the nation's Official Secrets Act continues, according to their lawyer. The two journalists had worked on Reuters coverage of a crisis in Rakhine, where an estimated 700,000 Rohingya Muslims have fled from a fierce military crackdown on militants. YANGON, MYANMAR (FILE) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF SULE PAGODA YANGON, MYANMAR (FILE - JANUARY 10, 2018) (REUTERS) ACTIVISTS PUTTING UP BANNERS IN SUPPORT OF DETAINED JOURNALISTS WORDS ON T-SHIRT READING (English): "Journalism is not a crime."
  • Embargoed: 19th November 2018 05:26
  • Keywords: Reuters journalists. journalists Official Secrets Act Wa Lone appeal press freedom Kyaw Soe Oo jailed Reuters reporters children's book Myanmar press freedom Myanmar journalists reporters
  • 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: LVA0079597TXH
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: Lawyers for two Reuters reporters jailed for seven years in Myanmar lodged an appeal on Monday (November 5) against their conviction on charges of breaking the country's Official Secrets Act.
    The appeal cited evidence of a police set-up and lack of proof of a crime.
    Wa Lone, 32, and Kyaw Soe Oo, 28, were found guilty in September after a trial at a Yangon district court in a landmark case that has raised questions about Myanmar's progress towards democracy and sparked an outcry from diplomats and human rights advocates.
    Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi said in September that the jailing of the reporters had nothing to do with freedom of expression. In comments made the week after their conviction, she said they had been sentenced for handling official secrets and "were not jailed because they were journalists."
    Before their arrest, the reporters had been working on a Reuters investigation into the killing of 10 Rohingya Muslim men and boys by security forces and local Buddhists in western Myanmar's Rakhine state during an army crackdown that began in August last year. The operation sent more than 700,000 people fleeing to Bangladesh.
    During eight months of hearings, Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo testified that two policemen they had not met before handed them papers rolled up in a newspaper during a meeting at a Yangon restaurant on Dec. 12. Almost immediately afterwards, they said, they were bundled into a car by plainclothes officers.
    On Feb. 1, a police witness said under cross-examination that information in the documents had already been published in newspapers. In April, a prosecution witness testified that a senior officer had ordered subordinates to plant documents on Wa Lone to "trap" the reporter.
    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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