A court in Myanmar has sentenced two journalists from the Reuters news agency to seven years in prison. Earlier this month, the judge ruled that Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo illegally got hold of secret government documents. The journalists pleaded not guilty. Many people around the world believe the men were wrongly convicted.
Press freedom groups say Myanmar’s government is trying to hide the truth. The journalists were arrested while reporting on military attacks against Rohingya people in Myanmar’s Rakhine State. The Rohingya are an ethnic minority
ethnic minority
MATT277/GETTY IMAGES
a group that has a different race, religion, or cultural tradition from the main poulation of the country where they live
(noun)
The fire chief worked to recruit Chinese Americans and other people from an ethnic minority to work in the fire department.
. Some 700,000 of them fled to neighboring Bangladesh to escape recent violence. The United Nations has called for officers of Myanmar’s military to be charged with genocide
genocide
RYPSON/GETTY IMAGES
the killing of a group of people who belong to a certain racial, political, or ethnic group
(noun)
My class visited the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, where we learned about genocide.
.
Wa Lone called the ruling “unfair.” Myanmar’s government is “threatening our democracy and destroying freedom of the press in our country,” he told the crowd outside the court.
The two are not the first journalists to find themselves in trouble in Myanmar. In the past few years, more than 30 journalists there have been charged with crimes for their work. Myanmar says reports of violence against Rohingya are “fake news.”
Nikki Haley is U.S. ambassador to the U.N. In a statement, she called the convictions “another terrible stain” on Myanmar’s government. She added: “In a free country, it is the duty of a responsible press to keep people informed and hold leaders accountable.”
Stop & Think! What effects might the jailing of these reporters have on other members of the press in the United States and around the world?
Paired Text
More from World
Share a Link
- Click the icon above to copy the url link to your clipboard.
- Paste the link into the location in which you share assignments with students. Examples might include, but are not limited to Canvas, Schoology and Edmodo.
Google Classroom
- Click on the icon above to share the article with a class in your Google Classroom.
- Choose an action. Options might include creating an assignment or asking a question.
