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TEHRAN, September 03 -The new UN human rights chief has called on Myanmar to free two Reuters journalists jailed for their reporting of the military’s ethnic-cleansing campaign against Rohingya Muslims in the Southeast Asian country.
TEHRAN, Young Journalists Club (YJC) - Michelle Bachelet in a statement on Monday in the Swiss city of Geneva said that she was "shocked" by Myanmar's jailing of the two journalists for seven years and called for their immediate release.
She stressed that their trial was "travesty of justice". "The trial was a travesty of justice, so I will urge the Myanmar government to release them as soon as possible, immediately."
"Their conviction follow[s] a legal process that clearly breached international standards," the former Chilean president said on her first day as UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.
"It sends a message to all journalists in Myanmar that they cannot operate fearlessly, but must rather make a choice to either self-censor or risk prosecution," she noted
Elsewhere in her statement, she also urged Myanmar to free all other journalists detained for exercising their freedom of expression.
Journalists Wa Lone, 32, and Kyaw Soe Oo, 28, were detained in December last year after reporting on the killings of 10 Rohingya Muslims by the Myanmar military in the northwestern state of Rakhine.
Judge Ye Lwin convicted the journalists on Monday of being guilty for breaching a law on state secrets when they collected and obtained confidential documents.
Michelle Bachelet in a statement on Monday in the Swiss city of Geneva said that she was "shocked" by Myanmar's jailing of the two journalists for seven years and called for their immediate release.
She stressed that their trial was "travesty of justice". "The trial was a travesty of justice, so I will urge the Myanmar government to release them as soon as possible, immediately."
"Their conviction follow[s] a legal process that clearly breached international standards," the former Chilean president said on her first day as UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.
"It sends a message to all journalists in Myanmar that they cannot operate fearlessly, but must rather make a choice to either self-censor or risk prosecution," she noted
Elsewhere in her statement, she also urged Myanmar to free all other journalists detained for exercising their freedom of expression.
Journalists Wa Lone, 32, and Kyaw Soe Oo, 28, were detained in December last year after reporting on the killings of 10 Rohingya Muslims by the Myanmar military in the northwestern state of Rakhine.
Judge Ye Lwin convicted the journalists on Monday of being guilty for breaching a law on state secrets when they collected and obtained confidential documents.
The world body’s Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar said in a report last week that the country’s commander-in-chief and other generals should stand trial for “genocide” and war crimes against the Rohingya minority group.
The mission has also said the de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi should have resigned over her silence on the campaign of terror.
Source: Press TV
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