(NAYPYITAW, Myanmar) — Lawyers for two Reuters journalists sentenced to seven-year prison terms for violating Myanmar’s Official Secrets Act have filed an appeal with the country’s highest court seeking to overturn their convictions.
Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo were arrested in December 2017 for having government documents in their possession. They contend they were framed by police, and their supporters contend they were framed because of official displeasure over their reporting on the security forces’ crackdown by security forces on members of the Muslim ethnic minority in western Rakhine state. A brutal counterinsurgency campaign sent 700,000 Rohingya fleeing across the border to Bangladesh.
The lawyers’ appeal Friday to the Supreme Court in the capital Naypyitaw is a procedural one, contending that lower courts’ rulings on the case were made in error.
