YANGON: Two
Reuters journalists jailed for seven years while investigating atrocities
committed against the Rohingya in Myanmar had their appeal dismissed Friday,
dismaying colleagues and tearful family members who had held slim hopes they
would walk free. Reporters Wa Lone, 32, and Kyaw Soe Oo, 28, were arrested in
Yangon in December 2017 and later jailed for violating the state secrets act, a
charge Reuters said was trumped up to muzzle their reporting.

Prosecutors say
the two had classified information regarding security operations in Rakhine
state, from where hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslims fled during an
army-led crackdown the United Nations has described as "ethnic cleansing".
Aung Naing, a judge at the Yangon Regional High Court, said the original
verdict was a "reasonable decision" delivered in line with the law.
"The court decides to dismiss the appeal," he said.

The reporters'
wives cried after the decision, which condemns the pair to continue their
incarceration at Yangon's notorious Insein prison, where they have been held
for the last 13 months. "I feel really sad that what we hoped for did not
happen," a stone-faced Chit Su Win, who is married to Kyaw Soe Oo, told
reporters outside the court. Wa Lone's wife Pan Ei Mon -- who has given birth
to a baby girl since her husband was put behind bars -- was similarly
despondent. "I don't want to talk about the decision today as it is not
good news," she said.  

Presidential
pardon?

The two men --
who were not present for the decision -- have insisted they were victims of a
police set-up, pointing to testimony from a serving officer who said a superior
ordered others to entrap them. At the time of the arrest they were probing the
extrajudicial killing of 10 Rohingya at Inn Din village in northern Rakhine
state.

"They remain
behind bars for one reason: those in power sought to silence the truth,"
Reuters editor-in-chief Stephen J Adler said in a statement Friday. The
original trial was widely regarded as a sham and seen as punishment for their
investigation and a warning shot to other media. Outside the country, the two
men have been hailed as media freedom heroes and jointly named Time magazine's
Person of the Year 2018, alongside other high-profile journalists. But they
have gained little sympathy within Myanmar.

The violent
military campaign in 2017 forced more than 720,000 Rohingya across the border
to Bangladesh, with refugees bringing accounts of murder, rape and arson. UN
investigators have called for top generals to be investigated for genocide and
singled out de facto civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi for criticism for failing
to condemn the operations. The image of the formerly renowned champion of human
rights has been further damaged by the Reuters conviction.

In her most
comprehensive comments on their case in September, Suu Kyi denied the pair had
been jailed "because they were journalists" and endorsed the court
decision that "they had broken the Official Secrets Act". Options are
dwindling for the two young men. The legal team can lodge an appeal with
Myanmar's Supreme Court but some see a presidential pardon as another way out,
even though the president Win Myint is a Suu Kyi loyalist.

International
condemnation

The United States
said it was "deeply disappointed" by the verdict and pledged to press
the journalists' case. "A free and independent press should be protected
in any democracy. Today's ruling casts doubt not only on freedom of expression
in Burma, but also raises questions about Burma's commitment to the rule of
law," State Department spokesman Robert Palladino said, using Myanmar's
former name.

Reacting outside
the court, European Union ambassador to Myanmar Kristian Schmidt said he looked
to the president to "correct the injustice". Speaking on the BBC, UK
Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt urged Suu Kyi "to look at whether that due
process" was followed in the case, calling on the fallen rights icon to
take "a personal interest in the future of these two brave
journalists." Myanmar's army gets 25 percent of parliamentary seats
unelected under a constitution it wrote and runs all defense affairs without
input from the civilian government. - AFP