YANGON: A global outcry over the jailing of two Reuters journalists in Myanmar has been greeted with silence by civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi, a stony response that an official defended Tuesday as a reluctance to criticize the judiciary.
Journalists Wa Lone, 32, and Kyaw Soe Oo, 28, were arrested while reporting on atrocities committed during the violent expulsion by the military of some 700,000 Rohingya Muslims last year.
A Yangon court on Monday found them guilty under the Official Secrets Act and handed them each seven years in prison, sparking outrage from the UN, EU and US — all of whom supported Myanmar’s emergence from decades of junta rule — as well as media and rights groups.
Suu Kyi, who was herself subjected to house arrest for some 15 years, relying on foreign media to highlight her plight, has been widely-condemned for her silence on the case and verdict, which has posed the sternest test in recent years to free speech in the country.
Aung Hla Tun, a former Reuters journalist who now works for the government as deputy Minister of Information, defended the Nobel Laureate’s reticence.
“Criticizing the judicial system would be tantamount to contempt of court,” he said, explaining her silence so far. “I don’t think she will do it.”
Lawyers for the pair will appeal the verdict while ultimately the country’s president, a close ally of Suu Kyi, can pardon prisoners.
In April the president granted 8,500 jailed people an amnesty, including 36 deemed political prisoners.
But there were still some 200 others, including the two Reuters journalists, facing trials linked to political activities, the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners said at the time.
Erstwhile Suu Kyi advocates overseas have been left dismayed by her attitude to their case so far.
Her one public reference to the Reuters journalists during the court case — telling Japanese broadcaster NHK that the pair had broken the official secrets act — was criticized by rights groups for potentially prejudicing the verdict.
Former confidant and member of her advisory board on the Rohingya crisis US diplomat Bill Richardson alleged she also denounced the two reporters as traitors during a heated exchange at the beginning of the year.
While the case has horrified the West, the response within Myanmar has been muted.
Several papers marked the jailing of the pair with ‘7 Day News’ publishing a large black rectangle on its front page and the Myanmar Times running a full front-page photo of the pair calling the verdict “a blow to press freedom.”
But the case has not garnered wider public attention, despite its implications for press freedom in a country, whose emergence from junta rule has been contorted by the violence in Rakhine.
Myanmar defends Suu Kyi’s silence over jailed reporters
Myanmar defends Suu Kyi’s silence over jailed reporters
- Journalists Wa Lone, 32, and Kyaw Soe Oo, 28, were arrested while reporting on atrocities committed during the violent expulsion of some 700,000 Rohingya Muslims last year
- A Yangon court on Monday found them guilty under the Official Secrets Act and handed them each seven years in prison
China’s top diplomat to visit Somalia on Africa tour
- Stop in Mogadishu provides diplomatic boost after Israel formally recognized breakaway Somaliland
- Tour focusses on Beijing's strategic trade access across eastern and southern Africa
BEIJING: China’s top diplomat began his annual New Year tour of Africa on Wednesday, focusing on strategic trade access across eastern and southern Africa as Beijing seeks to secure key shipping routes and resource supply lines.
Foreign Minister Wang Yi will travel to Ethiopia, Africa’s fastest-growing large economy; Somalia, a Horn of Africa state offering access to key global shipping lanes; Tanzania, a logistics hub linking minerals-rich central Africa to the Indian Ocean; and Lesotho, a small southern African economy squeezed by US trade measures. His trip this year runs until January 12.
Beijing aims to highlight countries it views as model partners of President Xi Jinping’s flagship “Belt and Road” infrastructure program and to expand export markets, particularly in young, increasingly affluent economies such as Ethiopia, where the IMF forecasts growth of 7.2 percent this year.
China, the world’s largest bilateral lender, faces growing competition from the European Union to finance African infrastructure, as countries hit by pandemic-era debt strains now seek investment over loans.
“The real litmus test for 2026 isn’t just the arrival of Chinese investment, but the ‘Africanization’ of that investment. As Wang Yi visits hubs like Ethiopia and Tanzania, the conversation must move beyond just building roads to building factories,” said Judith Mwai, policy analyst at Development Reimagined, an Africa-focussed consultancy.
“For African leaders, this tour is an opportunity to demand that China’s ‘small yet beautiful’ projects specifically target our industrial gaps, turning African raw materials into finished products on African soil, rather than just facilitating their exit,” she added.
On his start-of-year trip in 2025, Wang visited Namibia, the Republic of Congo, Chad and Nigeria.
His visit to Somalia will be the first by a Chinese foreign minister since the 1980s and is expected to provide Mogadishu with a diplomatic boost after Israel became the first country to formally recognize the breakaway Republic of Somaliland, a northern region that declared itself independent in 1991.
Beijing, which reiterated its support for Somalia after the Israeli announcement in December, is keen to reinforce its influence around the Gulf of Aden, the entrance to the Red Sea and a vital corridor for Chinese trade transiting the Suez Canal to Europe.
Further south, Tanzania is central to Beijing’s plan to secure access to Africa’s vast copper deposits. Chinese firms are refurbishing the Tazara Railway that runs through the country into Zambia. Li Qiang made a landmark trip to Zambia in November, the first visit by a Chinese premier in 28 years.
The railway is widely seen as a counterweight to the US and European Union-backed Lobito Corridor, which connects Zambia to Atlantic ports via Angola and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
By visiting the southern African kingdom of Lesotho, Wang aims to highlight Beijing’s push to position itself as a champion of free trade. Last year, China offered tariff-free market access to its $19 trillion economy for the world’s poorest nations, fulfilling a pledge by Chinese President Xi Jinping at the 2024 China-Africa Cooperation summit in Beijing.
Lesotho, one of the world’s poorest nations with a gross domestic product of just over $2 billion, was among the countries hardest hit by US President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs last year, facing duties of up to 50 percent on its exports to the United States.
