Myanmar court sentences US journalist to 11 years in jail

BANGKOK (AP):

A court in military-ruled Myanmar on Friday sentenced US journalist Danny Fenster to 11 years in prison with hard labour, the maximum penalty under three charges, despite calls by the United States and rights groups for his release.

It was the harshest punishment yet among the seven journalists known to have been convicted since the military ousted the elected government of Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi in February.

Fenster, the managing editor of the online magazine Frontier Myanmar, still faces additional terrorism and treason charges under which he could receive up to life in prison.

The court found him guilty on Friday of spreading false or inflammatory information, contacting illegal organisations and violating visa regulations, lawyer Than Zaw Aung said.

Fenster wept after hearing the sentence and has not yet decided whether to appeal, the lawyer said.

The harsh penalty is the ruling military’s latest rebuff of calls from around the world for a peaceful end to Myanmar’s political crisis. The government is refusing to cooperate with an envoy appointed by Southeast Asian governments to mediate a solution, and has not bowed to sanctions imposed by the United States and several other Western countries.

UN human rights chief Michelle Bachelet said Fenster’s conviction and harsh sentence “is emblematic of the wider plight of journalists in Myanmar who have been facing constant repression since the February 1 military coup”.

According to Bachelet, at least 126 journalists, media officials or publishers have been detained by the military since the military seized power and 47 remain in detention, including 20 charged with crimes.

Nine media outlets have had their licences revoked, 20 others have had to suspend operations, and dozens of journalists remain in hiding due to outstanding arrest warrants, she said.

“Journalists have been under attack since February 1, with the military leadership clearly attempting to suppress their attempts to report on the serious human rights violations being perpetrated across Myanmar, as well as the extent of opposition to the regime,” Bachelet said. “Myanmar has quickly reverted to an environment of information control, censorship and propaganda seen under military regimes in the past.”

“I urge the military authorities to immediately release all journalists being detained in relation to their work,” she said, stressing that people are being deprived “of life-saving information”.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres supports Bachelet’s views, and reiterated that journalists everywhere, including those in Myanmar, must be allowed to work without harassment and that reporting facts “is not and must not be seen as a crime,” UN deputy spokesman Farhan Haq said.

“It’s clear that Danny is being made an example of, and what it shows is that the junta do not care what the international community thinks,” said Manny Maung, Myanmar researcher for the New York-based group Human Rights Watch. “They would do as they want, and this is one example of how they are basically showing the international community that they cannot be held accountable.”

The army’s takeover was opposed by widespread peaceful protests that were put down with lethal force. Security forces killed more than 1,200 civilians and arrested about 10,000 others, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners. Armed resistance has since spread, and UN experts and other observers fear the incipient insurgency could slide into civil war.