A Burmese journalist faces up to life in prison for publishing an interview with a rebel group operating in the country’s restive Rakhine State a week after the insurgents were classified as a terrorist organization.
The western region has long been a tinderbox of conflict between the Burmese military and Arakan Army (AA), a group demanding greater autonomy for the state’s ethnic Rakhine people.
Clashes have left scores of civilians killed, hundreds injured and about 150,000 displaced since January last year, and both sides have traded allegations of abuse.
An interview with a top-ranking AA representative published on Monday by the Mandalay-based Voice of Myanmar led to the detention of editor-in-chief Nay Myo Lin, who was brought to court on terrorism charges on Tuesday.
The interview was published after the government declared on Thursday last week that the insurgents had been classified as a “terrorist group.”
“I was accused under two charges of the counter-terrorism law,” he told reporters before leaving the court in Mandalay.
The charges — which cover breaches including allowing terrorist groups to spread fear, gather or hide — were filed by Special Branch, Myanmar’s intelligence arm, he said.
They carry penalties ranging from three years to life in prison.
“This is disturbing for press freedom,” said the journalist, who previously worked for the BBC’s Burmese-language news service.
Zarni Mann, his wife and a reporter with independent local news Web site the Irrawaddy, said her husband’s laptop was seized.
She decried the use of counter-terrorism laws against journalists.
Amnesty International East Asia director Nicholas Bequelin called for the charges to be dropped and for Nay Myo Lin’s immediate release.
“Myanmar must stop arresting journalists simply for doing their jobs,” Bequelin said.
Myanmar has come under fire in the past for the high-profile jailing of two Reuters journalists who were convicted in 2018 of breaching a law on state secrets after revealing a massacre of Rohingya Muslims.
The pair were eventually freed by presidential pardon after spending more than a year in jail.
Myanmar is ranked 138 out of 180 countries for press freedom by Reporters Without Borders.
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