Originally posted by the Voice of America.
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Myanmar Judge to Decide Fate of Jailed Journalists

by VOA News

   A court in Myanmar will rule next week whether two journalists for the
   Reuters news agency will face trial for allegedly breaking the
   country's secrecy laws by reporting on the Rohingya crisis.

   Wa Lone, 32, and Kyaw Soe Oo, 28, are accused of breaching the Official
   Secrets Act, which carries a maximum penalty of 14 years in prison.

   The pair has been held in custody since their arrest in December and
   are accused of being in possession of leaked sensitive material linked
   to a military crackdown in crisis-hit Rakhine state, home to Myanmar's
   minority Muslim Rohingya population.

   Their detention has prompted an outcry among international human rights
   groups.

   Defense lawyers asked the judge at a pretrial hearing Monday to drop
   the charges, saying the prosecution had failed to provide sufficient
   evidence to prove their case.

   "Journalists Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo were the victims of an
   orchestrated scheme by some members of the security forces to trap them
   and silence truthful reporting," defense lawyer Khin Maung Zaw told the
   court.

   The reporters were meeting with two police officers they say they had
   never met before in northern Yangon. The men later told relatives that
   they were handed some papers, then were arrested almost immediately.

   Human Rights Watch again called for the release of the journalists.

   "The authorities [in Myanmar] have turned to tactics long-favored by
   past military juntas -- locking and persecuting those exposing the
   truth," the rights watchdog group said.

   Reuters President and Editor-in-Chief Stephen Adler said this was a
   "critical juncture" in the case.

   "Freedom of the press is essential in any democracy, and to charge Wa
   Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo under these circumstances, without any proof of
   their having done anything unlawful, would seriously undermine
   Myanmar's constitutional guarantee of free speech," Adler said in a
   statement.