Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo, who had been investigating the massacre of Rohingya in Rakhine state, were convicted last week of collecting state secrets by a court in Yangon. Suu Kyi’s response to the crisis has been slammed.
Myanmar’s de facto leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, rejected claims that two Reuters journalists who were jailed last week for seven years on charges of violating the colonial-era Official Secrets Act were incarcerated because of their profession.
“They were not jailed because they were journalists. They were jailed because…the court has decided that they have broken the Official Secrets Act,” the Nobel Peace laureate said in response to a question during the ASEAN World Economic Forum in Hanoi, Vietnam on Thursday.
When asked whether she felt comfortable about the court’s judgment, Suu Kyi responded: “I wonder whether many people have actually read the summary of the judgment, which had nothing to do with the freedom of expression at all; it had to do with the Officials Secrets Act.”
“If we believe in the rule of law, they have every right to appeal the judgment and to point out why the judgment was wrong,” she added.
Source: DW
