Three detained journalists appeared in a Myanmar court on Wednesday to face charges filed against them by the Yangon city government, which alleges a story they published was false.<\/p>\n
An increasing number of journalists have been arrested and jailed for their work under Myanmar\u2019s civilian government, led by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, a former political prisoner.<\/p>\n
The senior journalists for local Eleven Media Group were arrested October 9 after publishing a story alleging fund mismanagement by Yangon government officials.<\/p>\n
A director in the Yangon city government filed a complaint saying the journalists editor in chief Kyaw Zaw Lin, managing editor Nari Min and chief reporter Phyo Wai Win violated a law banning publication of \u201cincorrect information\u201d that could cause \u201cfear or alarm to the public.\u201d Punishment under the law can include two years\u2019 imprisonment and a fine.<\/p>\n
\u201cBy arresting these three journalists for simply doing their job to investigate and report on possible Yangon municipal malfeasance, the Myanmar government shows how little it respects freedom of the press,\u201d said Phil Robertson, the human rights group\u2019s deputy Asia director.<\/p>\n
\u201cDemocracy is in deep trouble in Myanmar if officials can get reporters tossed in prison any time they ask a tough question. The government should order the prosecutor to withdraw the charges, and cease its harassment of the media.\u201d<\/p>\n
Journalists from Eleven Media have been arrested in the past for investigating corruption by high-ranking politicians. In 2016, its chief executive and chief editor were detained after publishing an opinion piece on corrupt officials. Those charges were eventually dropped.<\/p>\n
Recent jailings of journalists in Myanmar include Reuters reporters Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo, who were sentenced to seven years in prison earlier this year. They had been reporting on the military\u2019s operations against minority Rohingya Muslims and were accused of possessing secret documents.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe decline of press freedom in Myanmar is alarming,\u201d said Matthew Smith, the head of human rights group Fortify Rights. \u201cWith each imprisoned journalist, the authorities dig the country deeper into an authoritarian pit.\u201d Myanmar government spokesman Zaw Htay could not be reached for comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Three detained journalists appeared in a Myanmar court on Wednesday to face charges filed against them by the Yangon city government, which alleges […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":44742,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[87],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-44741","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44741","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44741"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44741\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44743,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44741\/revisions\/44743"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44742"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44741"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44741"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44741"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}