{"id":302602,"date":"2018-09-13T11:31:18","date_gmt":"2018-09-13T11:31:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tehelka.com\/?p=302602"},"modified":"2018-09-13T11:31:22","modified_gmt":"2018-09-13T11:31:22","slug":"burmese-leader-suu-kyi-defends-verdict-against-reuters-journalists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/burmese-leader-suu-kyi-defends-verdict-against-reuters-journalists\/","title":{"rendered":"Burmese leader Suu Kyi defends verdict against Reuters journalists"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/tehelka.com\/burmese-leader-suu-kyi-defends-verdict-against-reuters-journalists\/suukyi\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-302603\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\" wp-image-302603 aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/tehelka.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/suukyi-300x232.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"521\" height=\"403\" srcset=\"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/media\/2018\/09\/suukyi-300x232.jpg 300w, https:\/\/tehelka.com\/media\/2018\/09\/suukyi-768x593.jpg 768w, https:\/\/tehelka.com\/media\/2018\/09\/suukyi-696x538.jpg 696w, https:\/\/tehelka.com\/media\/2018\/09\/suukyi-544x420.jpg 544w, https:\/\/tehelka.com\/media\/2018\/09\/suukyi.jpg 888w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 521px) 100vw, 521px\" \/><\/a>Myanmar government leader Aung San Suu Kyi, on September 13 strongly defended a Burmese court decision to jail two Reuters news agency reporters who were arrested while investigating alleged war crimes against Rohingya Muslims, adding that they can appeal their seven-year jail sentence.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">Suu Kyi said, &#8220;They were not jailed because they were journalists, they were jailed because &#8230; the court has decided that they have broken the Official Secrets Act.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">She said this while attending an international economics conference in Vietnam. During her address she also admitted that her government could in hindsight have handled the Rohingya crisis differently.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">Two Reuters journalists named Wa Lone, 32, and Kyaw Soe Oo, 28, were imprisoned last week after the court found them guilty of breaching the country&#8217;s hardline Official Secrets Act while reporting on atrocities committed by security forces during the brutal crackdown in Rakhine state.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">Suu Kyi further added, &#8220;I wonder whether many people have actually read the summary of the judgement which had nothing to do with freedom of expression at all, it had to do with an Official Secrets Act.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">&#8220;If we believe in the rule of law, they have every right to appeal the judgment and to point out why the judgement was wrong,&#8221; Suu Kyi said.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Myanmar government leader Aung San Suu Kyi, on September 13 strongly defended a Burmese court decision to jail two Reuters news agency reporters who were arrested while investigating alleged war crimes against Rohingya Muslims, adding that they can appeal their seven-year jail sentence. Suu Kyi said, &#8220;They were not jailed because they were journalists, they [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":37,"featured_media":302603,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[53],"tags":[4981,4980,4605,4979,4602,3317,4978],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302602"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/users\/37"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=302602"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302602\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":302605,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302602\/revisions\/302605"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/media\/302603"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=302602"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=302602"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=302602"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}