YANGON, Myanmar: Lawyers lodged an appeal Monday to free two Reuters journalists jailed for their reporting on Myanmar’s Rohingya crisis, decrying the sentence as a “mistake” that has already resulted in the pair being locked up for a year.
Wa Lone, 32, and Kyaw Soe Oo, 28, were arrested in December 2017 and later sentenced to seven-year prison terms for what prosecutors said was a breach of official secrets law for the possession of classified material on security operations.
Reuters disputed the charge and said the two were set up by police after probing the massacre of 10 Rohingya Muslims during a military crackdown.
Their conviction in September sparked widespread global condemnation, including from US Vice President Mike Pence, who asked civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi to intervene.
But calls for their release have fallen flat inside Myanmar, where Suu Kyi has yet to speak up for the reporters publicly.
Their trial was criticized by rights groups as a sham and payback for uncovering the September 2017 massacre in Inn Din village in Myanmar’s Rakhine state.
During the trial a whistle-blowing policeman told the court his superior ordered a sting to entrap the reporters.
On Monday lawyers for the pair submitted an appeal to the High Court.
“This seven-year jail sentence is a mistake,” the journalists’ lawyer L.Khun Ring Pan told the bench, in a hearing attended by embassy officials and free media advocates as well as the wives of the jailed journalists.
“They were trying to find out who was involved with the (Inn Din) case. That’s why they tried to meet the police... they did not ask for anything secret.”
More than 720,000 Rohingya have fled Rakhine state to Bangladesh since the military’s crackdown last August, bringing accounts of rape, arson and mass killings.
UN investigators have said the evidence warrants charges of genocide against the country’s top generals, but the army maintains it was defending itself against Rohingya militants.
“We hope for fairness. We want them to be free,” Wa Lone’s wife Pan Ei Mon told AFP while a second lawyer Than Zaw Aung said “we hope to hear good news” when the appeal judge rules over coming days.
Media advocates say the journalists’ convictions under the British colonial-era official secrets law aimed to muzzle media investigating allegations of atrocities in Rakhine and other sensitive issues in Myanmar as it emerges from decades of junta rule.
“This is unacceptable for a country that claims to be transitioning toward democracy,” Daniel Bastard from Reporters Without Borders (RSF) told AFP.
Myanmar dropped six places in RSF’s latest World Press Freedom Index.
Outside the country the two young men have been feted with awards presented in their absence and hailed as heroes.
The anniversary of their arrest was marked by newsrooms publishing photos of their staff flashing two thumbs up, a defiant gesture Wa Lone made at court that became synonymous with the duo’s resilience.
Myanmar Reuters journalists appeal seven-year sentence
Myanmar Reuters journalists appeal seven-year sentence
- Reuters disputed the charge and said the two were set up by police after probing the massacre of 10 Rohingya Muslims during a military crackdown
- Their conviction in September sparked widespread global condemnation
UAE outlines approach to AI governance amid regulation debate at World Economic Forum
- Minister of State Maryam Al-Hammadi highlights importance of a robust regulatory framework to complement implementation of AI technology
- Other experts in panel discussion say regulators should address problems as they arise, rather than trying to solve problems that do not yet exist
DUBAI: The UAE has made changes to 90 percent of its laws in the past four years, Maryam Al-Hammadi, minister of state and the secretary-general of the Emirati Cabinet, told the World Economic Forum in Davos on Wednesday.
Speaking during a panel discussion titled “Regulating at the Speed of Code,” she highlighted the importance of having a robust regulatory framework in place to complement the implementation of artificial intelligence technology in the public and private sectors.
The process of this updating and repealing of laws has driven the UAE’s efforts to develop an AI model that can assist in the drafting of legislation, along with collecting feedback from stakeholders on proposed laws and suggesting improvements, she said.
Although AI might be more agile at shaping regulation, “there are some principles that we put in the model that we are developing that we cannot compromise,” Al-Hammadi added. These include rules for human accountability, transparency, privacy and data protection, along with constitutional safeguards and a thorough understanding of the law.
At this stage, “we believe AI can advise but still (the) human is in command,” she said.
Authorities in the UAE are aiming to develop, within a two-year timeline, a shareable model to help other nations learn and benefit from its experiences, Al-Hammadi added.
Argentina’s minister of deregulation and state transformation, Federico Sturzenegger, warned against overregulation at the cost of innovation.
Politicians often react to a “salient event” by overreacting, he said, describing most regulators as “very imaginative of all the terrible things that will happen to people if they’re free.”
He said that “we have to take more risk,” and regulators should wait to address problems as they arise rather than trying to create solutions for problems that do not yet exist.
This sentiment was echoed by Joel Kaplan, Meta’s chief global affairs officer, who said “imaginative policymakers” often focus more on risks and potential harms than on the economic and growth benefits of innovation.
He pointed to Europe as an example of this, arguing that an excessive focus on “all the possible harms” of new technologies has, over time, reduced competitiveness and risks leaving the region behind in what he described as a “new technological revolution.”
