Myanmar is jailing journalists for truthful reporting. It must respect the facts and free the reporters
- Stephen J. Adler says two Reuters reporters have been unjustly jailed in Myanmar for exposing a mass murder. In defending the convictions, Aung San Suu Kyi has failed to uphold the rule of law based on facts
This column – and the appeal we have filed – answers that call. Here are the facts:
Last December, Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo were investigating the role of the military and the police in the deaths of 10 Rohingya men and boys in a Rakhine village; a village elder had given our reporters photographs documenting the mass murder. One showed 10 men and boys kneeling in a field; another showed them in a mass grave, hacked and shot to death. Dozens of people who had been near the murders described what had happened, as well as the burning and looting of Rohingya homes by security forces. Being skilled reporters, Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo interviewed everyone they could: not just the fleeing Muslims but also Buddhists, the police and other security forces.
The shocking evidence they found was indisputable. This is the virtue of on-the-ground journalism practised by reporters who speak the local language, follow strict rules of independence and objectivity, and know their beats. This type of reporting, which is at the heart of Reuters’ work in the 166 countries where we operate, can provide proof of facts in ways that punditry or second-hand accounts simply cannot. Indeed, the Myanmar authorities were forced to admit that the massacre had occurred, even as they prosecuted our journalists for uncovering it.
For eight months, with our reporters still behind bars, a court in Yangon heard what passed for a prosecution case. The arresting officer testified that he had burned his records. Another witness read notes he had scribbled on his hand so that he could, by his own admission, remember how to testify.
International observers have seen the farcical trial for what it was: an attempt to punish our journalists and dissuade other reporters from covering events in Rakhine state. Diplomats from many nations, including the United States, Britain, Canada, Norway and Australia, have spoken out against the lack of due process and the rule of law, and the stifling of a free press in a country that has been promised democracy.
But so far, global outrage hasn’t changed anything. Aung San Suu Kyi claimed that the trial had nothing to do with press freedom and that the convictions were legitimate under the Official Secrets Act, a colonial-era law that bars the collection of secret documents to aid an enemy. The overwhelming evidence is to the contrary: that the police planted the documents in question on our journalists, whose only intent was to report truthfully.
We have appealed against their sentence, pointing out the many egregious legal and factual errors committed by the trial court. We would expect their convictions to be vacated, if the facts are to be respected.
But these, too, are facts:
Nothing prevents Aung San Suu Kyi from granting the families’ request for a pardon for the two husbands and fathers, even while an appeal is pending. Both men have spent nearly a year in jail – not for committing a crime, but for performing a public service. Given the facts of the case, a pardon would correct a severe injustice and uphold the rule of law, not detract from it, and demonstrate the country’s commitment to press freedom.
Journalists, being people, are imperfect. But journalism, done right, serves a high public purpose. It produces transparency in markets, holds governments and businesses to account, gives people tools to make well-informed decisions, uncovers wrongdoing, inspires reforms, and tells true and remarkable stories that move and inspire.
Pardoning Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo would reaffirm the government’s commitment to those ideals and renew the world’s hope – and that of the two courageous, patriotic reporters – for a transformed, unified Myanmar.
Stephen J. Adler is the president and editor-in-chief of Reuters