MYANMAR, Sep 3: A Myanmar court sentenced two Reuters journalists to seven years in prison Monday for illegal possession of official documents, a ruling met with international condemnation that will add to outrage over the military’s human rights abuses against Rohingya Muslims.

Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo had been reporting on the brutal crackdown on the Rohingya when they were arrested and charged with to violating the colonial-era Official Secrets Act, punishable by up to 14 years in prison. They had pleaded not guilty, contending that they were framed by police.

“Today is a sad day for Myanmar, Reuters journalists Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo, and the press everywhere,” Stephen J. Adler, Reuters editor-in-chief, said in a statement. These two admirable reporters have already spent nearly nine months in prison on false charges designed to silence their reporting and intimidate the press. Without any evidence of wrongdoing and in the face of compelling evidence of a police setup, today’s ruling condemns them to the continued loss of their freedom.”

The case has drawn worldwide attention as an example of how democratic reforms in long-isolated Myanmar have stalled under the civilian government of Nobel Peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, which took power in 2016. Though the military, which ruled the country for a half-century, maintains control of several key ministries, Suu Kyi’s rise to government had raised hopes for an accelerated transition to full democracy and her stance on the Rohingya crisis has disappointed many former admirers.

As the verdict was announced in the hot Yangon courtroom, Kyaw Soe Oo’s wife started crying, leaning into the lap of the person next to her. Outside the court, police and journalists shouted as the two Reuters reporters were led to a truck to be taken away.

“This is unfair,” Wa Lone told the crowd. “I want to say they are obviously threatening our democracy and destroying freedom of the press in our country.”

Kevin Krolicki, Reuters regional editor for Asia, said outside the court that it was “heartbreaking for friends and colleagues and family of Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo, who in addition to the outrage many will feel, are deprived of their friends and colleagues, husband and father.”

Wa Lone, 32, and Kyaw Soe Oo, 28, both testified they suffered from harsh treatment during their initial interrogations. Their several appeals for release on bail were rejected. Wa Lone’s wife, Pan Ei Mon, gave birth to the couple’s first child in Yangon on Aug. 10, but Wa Lone has not yet seen his daughter.

The two journalists had been reporting last year on the brutal crackdown by security forces on the Rohingya in Myanmar’s Rakhine state. Some 700,000 Rohingya fled to neighboring Bangladesh to escape the violence targeting them after attacks by Rohingya militants killed a dozen members of the security forces.

Investigators working for the UN’s top human rights body said last week that genocide charges should be brought against senior Myanmar military officers over the crackdown.

The accusation of genocide was rejected by Myanmar’s government, but is the most serious official recommendation for prosecution so far. Also last week, Facebook banned Myanmar’s powerful military chief and 19 other individuals and organizations from its site to prevent the spread of hate and misinformation in connection with the Rohingya crisis.

Dozens of journalists and pro-democracy activists marched Saturday in Yangon, Myanmar’s biggest city, in support of the reporters. But in the country at large, with an overwhelming Buddhist majority, there is widespread prejudice against the Rohingya, and in the government and military, there is near-xenophobic sensitivity to foreign criticism.

Myanmar’s courts are one of the country’s most conservative and nationalistic institutions, and the darkened political atmosphere had seemed unlikely to help the reporters’ cause.

The court earlier this year declined to stop the trial after an initial phase of presentation of evidence, even though a policeman called as a prosecution witness testified that his commander had ordered that documents be planted on the journalists. After his testimony, the officer was jailed for a year for violating police regulations and his family was kicked out of police housing.

Other testimony by prosecution witnesses was contradictory, and the documents presented as evidence against the reporters appeared to be neither secret nor sensitive. The journalists testified they did not solicit or knowingly possess any secret documents.

UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator in Myanmar Knut Ostby said the UN was “disappointed by today’s court decision.”

“The United Nations has consistently called for the release of the Reuters journalists and urged the authorities to respect their right to pursue freedom of expression and information,” he said. “Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo should be allowed to return to their families and continue their work as journalists.”

In the latest US expression of concern, Washington’s envoy to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, said the Trump administration expected to see the two journalists acquitted of all charges.

Haley told the Security Council during a discussion of the Rohingya crisis last week that “a free and responsible press is critical for any democracy.”  AP

The Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation on Wednesday singled out Afghanistan’s Habiba Sarabi, a 57-year-old doctor, for her “bold exercise of leadership to build up a functioning provincial government against great odds.”

Sarabi, currently the only Afghan woman in such a role, also devoted her energy to helping Afghans in refugee camps, providing medical care and supervising literacy courses secretly in a Taliban-ruled state in the late 1990s.

“I’m not a warlord. I’m just a modern woman,” said Sarabi, the governor of Bamyan province since 2005, who has pushed for education and empowerment of women in a society scarred by widespread discrimination against women and minorities.

The Foundation also recognized Lahpai Seng Raw from Myanmar, for her “quietly inspiring and inclusive leadership in the midst of deep ethnic divides and prolonged armed conflicts.”

The 64-year-old widow, founder of the largest civil society group in the military-ruled country, did relief work among displaced people besides setting up schools and clinics. She was once detained on suspicion of being in contact with a brother who is with rebel forces in Myanmar.

In addition, the Manila-based foundation honored Ernesto Domingo, a 76-year-old Filipino doctor who saved millions from life-threatening illness by vaccinating babies against hepatitis B and almost eliminating the chance of their getting infected.

Other winners include Indonesia’s independent anti-corruption government body, the Komisi Pemberantasan Korupsi (KPK), which has a 100-percent rate of conviction of corrupt officials and has recovered $80 million in stolen assets.

Nepal’s Shakti Samuha, a group that combats human trafficking and helped rebuild the lives of thousands of trafficked and abused women, was another winner.

The winners will receive prizes of $50,000 each at a ceremony set for August 31 in Manila.

“The foundation wishes to raise awareness about the Magsaysay Award and specifically, about this year’s five awardees, who are collectively advancing causes to improve lives and transform societies across Asia,” foundation president Carmencita Abella said in a statement.

The awards, named for a popular president of the Philippines who was killed in a plane crash, were established in 1957 by the trustees of the New York-based Rockefeller Brothers Fund.

More than 300 people and groups, including the U.S. Peace Corps and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, have been recognized since 1958.

YANGON: President Thein Sein left Myanmar on Sunday for a visit to Britain and France, an official said, as the former junta general looks to build on support for his much-lauded reforms.

“The president left Yangon this morning to visit Britain and France,” a government official told AFP without giving further details of the visit, Thein Sein’s second trip to Europe in months.

Another official earlier said the trip would be from July 14 to 18.

Thein Sein visited several European countries in March — although not Britain or France — to bolster relations.

The former general has surprised the international community by overseeing sweeping reforms since taking the presidency in 2011.

Those changes include freeing hundreds of political prisoners and welcoming democracy champion Aung San Suu Kyi and her political party into parliament.

The European Union, which had already ditched most sanctions except an arms embargo, has readmitted Myanmar to its trade preference scheme, saying it wanted to support reform in the once-pariah state through economic development.

Washington has also lifted most embargoes and foreign companies are now eager to enter the resource-rich nation, with its perceived frontier market of some 60 million potential consumers.

Barack Obama paid a first-ever US presidential visit to Myanmar last November, and Thein Sein visited Washington in May.

Myanmar: When a huge mob of Buddhist thugs crawled on the roof of Ma Sandar Soe’s shop, doused it with gasoline and set it ablaze, the Buddhist businesswoman didn’t blame them for burning it to the ground despite seeing it happen with her own eyes.

Instead, her wrath was reserved for minority Muslims she accused of igniting Myanmar’s latest round of sectarian unrest.

“This happened because of the Muslims,” she declared, sifting through charred CDs in the ruins of her recording studio.

As Myanmar grapples with its transition to democracy, its Muslim minority is experiencing its perils in vivid, bloody fashion. Hundreds have died since last year as victims of sectarian strife.

In the country’s latest round of Buddhist-Muslim violence, swarms of Buddhist men roamed Lashio’s crumbling streets this week, armed with rocks and sticks and machetes. Before police and army troops stepped in, anarchic crowds had torched scores of Muslim-owned shops, sending plumes of black smoke into the sky. By the time it all ended, at least one person was dead and the town’s Muslim community cowered in their homes in fear.

Ma Sandar Soe’s studio fell victim because it sat in the shadow of the mob’s main target — Lashio’s mosque. As orange flames leapt from the ashes, she explained her rationale for pointing the finger atMuslims: The Buddhist mob was provoked by reports that a Muslim man from out of town tried to burn a Buddhist woman alive. The woman survived, badly burned, and the man was arrested.

But the roots of anti-Muslim sentiment in Myanmar, also called Burma, are far deeper and more complex than any single incident in any single town.

“There is a deep, underlying prejudice there. Even when Buddhists say they have Muslim friends, they call them ‘kalar’ and other derogatory terms,” said Mark Farmaner of London-based Burma Campaign UK, a democracy promotion group. “That prejudice is easily exploited, and it’s a cancer that is now spreading.”

“Successive military regimes have implanted the dislike of Muslims in the mind of the general public and enacted ad hoc and de facto discriminatory restrictions,” said Sai Latt, a doctoral candidate at Canada’s Simon Fraser University who has written extensively on Muslims in Myanmar.

Myanmar society has been in a state of flux since a nominally democratic government came to power in 2011 after almost five decades of harsh military rule. A liberalized economy has accompanied the political changes. And the advent of democracy has enabled hate speech to flourish.

“There are so few sanctions now on those who provide contrarian or critical or indeed radical ideas about how society should be structured,” said Nicholas Farrelly, a research fellow at Australian National University. “There is this awakening of different sentiments; some of those are very progressive and democratic, in other cases they are profoundly reactionary and or authoritarian in spirit.”

The spread beyond the western and central towns where deadly mob attacks and arsons have occurred since last year will reinforce doubts that President Thein Sein’s government can or will act to contain the violence.

The extent of Tuesday night’s violence was unclear, as the area is remote and officials were difficult to reach at a late hour. Unconfirmed reports on Muslim news websites said a large mosque and a Muslim orphanage had been burned down.

A politician in Lashio in Shan state, Sai Myint Maung, said authorities banned gatherings of more than five people after about 150 massed outside a police station demanding that the alleged culprit in the unconfirmed immolation be handed over. The mob also burned some stores, he said.

According to the rumors, the man doused the woman with gasoline and set her alight. The attack could not be confirmed, but a Muslim-oriented news website that described it said the attacker was not Muslim.

A resident who asked not to be identified for fear of reprisals confirmed by phone that some shops were burned near the police station and the hospital where the victim was said to have been taken. A Lashio resident, Than Htay, said he could see smoke and had heard about the ban on gatherings. He said calm had been restored.

However, the website of the Muslim-oriented M-media Group said Lashio’s biggest mosque had been torched by a mob while firefighters stood by, and a Muslim school and orphanage was also burned down. It did not say if there were any casualties. Its report acknowledged the burning of the woman but said the perpetrator was not a Muslim.

While the account could not immediately be confirmed, the website’s accounts of past violence against Muslims in Myanmar were subsequently reported in other media. Several photos circulating on Facebook also showed what was purported to be the mosque in flames.

The sectarian violence began in western Rakhine state last year, when hundreds died in clashes between Buddhist and Muslims that drove about 140,000 people, mostly Muslims, from their homes. The violence had seemed confined to that region, but in late March, similar Buddhist-led violence swept the town of Meikthila in central Myanmar, killing at least 43 people.

Several other towns in central Myanmar experienced less deadly violence, mostly involving the torching of Muslim businesses and mosques.

Muslims account for about 4 percent of the nation’s roughly 60 million people. Anti-Muslim sentiment is closely tied to nationalism and the dominant Buddhist religion, so leaders have been reluctant to speak up for the unpopular minority.

Thein Sein’s administration, which came to power in 2011 after half a century of military rule, has been heavily criticized for not doing enough to protect Muslims.

He vowed last week during a U.S. trip that all perpetrators of the sectarian violence would be brought to justice, but so far, only Muslims have been arrested and sentenced for crimes connected to the attacks.

Muslims, however, have accounted for far more of the victims of the violence, and rights groups have accused certain authorities of fomenting a campaign of ethnic cleansing.

YANGON: It is Aung San Suu Kyi´s mantra for embedding democratic reform, but for many who endured Myanmar´s authoritarian and deeply corrupt former junta the “rule of law” remains a distant hope.

Flashpoint issues such as land grabbing have intensified fears that the country´s anaemic legal structures are failing to protect the poor and vulnerable despite sweeping reforms.

Rights groups also say impunity for recent outbreaks of communal unrest — and alleged army abuses in ethnic conflicts — have shown the law is struggling to keep pace with tumultuous political, social and economic change.

“We are still fighting for a fair system that applies to everybody… the law must be king,” said Khin Maung Win, a former political prisoner who was jailed for three years in 2002 for distributing anti-state leaflets while he was a law student.

Now secretary of advocacy group the Myanmar Legal Aid Network, he told AFP that his country´s legal system remains arbitrary, unprofessional and corrupt.

“We have had a bad history,” he said. “In order to move on, ordinary people now must be entitled to legal rights and be involved in the process of change.”

During the ulcerous junta era, experts say secret and summary jail terms were commonplace, deaths and disappearances blamed on the state went unpunished and courts were in cahoots with vested interests, including the brutal army rulers who milked the country´s wealth.

Judges could be easily bought or cowed by powerful businessmen and politicians, while prosecutors and police wielded unconstrained power.

A fledgling parliament now debates legislation under changes imposed by a quasi-civilian government which took power in 2011, but the operation of the courts remains opaque and analysts say legal institutions are too weak to underpin reforms.

The law must quickly win legitimacy in the eyes of the public, said veteran lawyer Aung Thein, who is representing villagers who say they were forced off land near a controversial Chinese-backed copper mine in central Myanmar.

That issue, which saw Suu Kyi face accusations that she had sided with the mine owners in a report on the project, fired concerns that laws will be strengthened to reassure investors, rather than protect the rights of Myanmar´s people.

“The administration still pressures the judiciary to act on its behalf,” Aung Thein told AFP, warning that the country “will not advance” if political interference continues.

President Thein Sein has stressed his commitment to fixing the legal system and echoes Suu Kyi´s clarion call for the rule of law to be binding.

YANGON, Myanmar: For most people in Myanmar, it will be a novelty when privately run daily newspapers hit the streets on Monday. Many weren’t even born when the late dictator Ne Winimposed a state monopoly on the daily press in the 1960s.

But for 81-year-old Khin Maung Lay, the rebirth of daily newspapers is like a second lease on life. He is chief editor of Golden Fresh Land, one of four dailies going on sale Monday as Myanmar takes another step in its march toward democracy.

He’s old enough to recall there once had been a big and vibrant daily press in the Burmese, English, Indian and Chinese languages in the period of parliamentary democracy after Myanmar, known then as Burma, won independence from Britain in 1948.

Khin Maung Lay worked as a senior newsman at the Burmese language Mogyo daily before it was driven out of business bygovernment pressure in 1964.

Now as chief editor of Golden Fresh Land — the name sounds less awkward in the original Burmese — he heads a team of young journalists he recruited from various weeklies, who have only the briefest of acquaintances with the concept of a free press, having grown up under the military government that ruled for five decades. They are up against some media behemoths and papers belonging to the country’s top political parties.

Khin Maung Lay acknowledges there are innumerable challenges ahead, but said he is ready to face them “in the name of freedom of press.” He’s well acquainted with the cutting edge of the concept — he went to jail three times under Ne Win, including a three-year stretch in “protective custody,” a catch-all phrase the military regime used as a reason for imprisoning critics.

“I foresee several hurdles along the way,” he said. “However, I am ready to run the paper in the spirit of freedom and professionalism taught by my peers during the good old days.”

The newspaper renaissance is part of the reform efforts of President Thein Sein, who, after serving as prime minister in the previous military regime, took office in March 2011 as head of an elected civilian government. Political and economic liberalization were at the top of his agenda, in an effort to boost national development.

The press has been a major beneficiary. The government lifted censorship in August last year, allowing reporters to print material that would have been unthinkable under military rule.

It’s not smooth sailing yet. The draconian 1962 Printing and Registration Act remains in place until a new media law is enacted. It carries a maximum seven-year prison term for failure to register and allows the government to revoke publishing licenses at any time.

The government announced in December that any Myanmar national wishing to publish a daily newspaper was welcome to apply and could begin publishing on April 1.

There were nearly two dozen applications, and Golden Fresh Land was one of 16 to win approval. Others include dailies to be put out by opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy party and Thein Sein’s ruling Union Solidarity and Development Party.

The Voice Daily is making its debut Monday, issued by the same group that has published a popular weekly since 2004.

“I am very excited that we are finally printing daily editions. It is a dream come true because that was our objective when we began publishing the Voice Journal in 2004,” 42-year-old editor-in-chief Kyaw Min Shwe said Sunday, as reporters hustled around his newsroom to put out their first edition.

He said the established government newspapers have an advantage in terms of money and distribution, but “I can say with absolute confidence that we can compete with government papers in terms of content and quality of news.”

Most coverage of local and national news in the state press is little more than the equivalent of government press releases, typically reporting on less-than-riveting topics such as the names of all the officials who attended the inauguration of a new bridge. Opinion pieces invariably reflect conservative positions that seem decades behind the times.

Aware of its vulnerability, the English-language state paper, the New Light of Myanmar, is seeking a joint venture partner to help with a makeover.

Myanmar: The top U.N. envoy to Myanmar toured a central city wracked by the country’s worst Buddhist-Muslim violence this year, calling on the government to punish those responsible for a tragedy that left dozens of corpses piled in the streets, some of them charred beyond recognition.

Vijay Nambiar, the U.N. secretary-general’s special adviser on Myanmar, also visited some of the nearly 10,000 people driven from their homes after sectarian unrest shook the city of Meikhtila for several days this week. Most of the displaced are minority Muslims, who appeared to have suffered the brunt of the violence as armed Buddhist mobs roamed city.

Nambiar said he was encouraged to learn that some individuals in both communities had bravely helped each other and that religious leaders were now advocating peace. He said the people he spoke to believe the violence “was the work of outsiders,” but he gave no details.

“There is a certain degree of fear and anxiety among the people, but there is no hatred,” Nambiar said after visiting both groups on Sunday and promising the United Nations would provide as much help as it can to get the city back on its feet. “They feel a sense of community and that it is a very good thing because they have worked together and lived together.”

But he added: “It is important to catch the perpetrators. It is important that they be caught and punished.”

Nambiar’s visit came one day after the army took control of the city to enforce a tense calm after President Thein Sein ordered a state of emergency here.

The government has put the official death toll at 32, and late Sunday state television reported that authorities had detained 35 people allegedly involved in arson and violence in Meikhtila and the townships of Yamethin and Lewei, which are about 64 kilometers (40 miles) and 130 kilometers (80 miles) south of Meikhtila, respectively.

The report said that a group of people burned down a mosque and several buildings early Saturday in Lewei, and that a mosque and 50 homes were also burned in Yamethin the same day.

The bloodshed marked the first sectarian unrest to spread into Myanmar’s heartland since two similar episodes rocked western Rakhine state last year. It is the latest challenge to efforts to reform the Southeast Asian country after the long-ruling military ceded power two years ago to a civiliangovernment led by retired army officers.

There are concerns the violence could spread, and the bloodshed has raised questions about the government’s failure to rein in anti-Muslim sentiment in a predominantly Buddhist country where even monks have armed themselves and taken advantage of newfound freedoms to stage anti-Muslim rallies.

In Meikthila, at least five mosques were set ablaze from Wednesday to Friday. The majority of homes and shops burned in the city also belonged to Muslims, and most of the displaced are Muslim.

During his trip, Nambiar visited some of the thousands of Muslim residents at a city stadium, where they have huddled since fleeing their homes. He later visited around 100 Buddhists at a local monastery who have also been displaced.

No new violence was reported overnight in Meikhtila, but residents remained anxious.

“The city is calm and some shops have reopened, but many still live in fear. Some still dare not return to their homes,” said Win Htein, an opposition lawmaker from the city.

Myanma Ahlin, a state-run newspaper, carried a statement from Buddhist, Muslim, Christian and Hindu leaders expressing sorrow for the loss of life and property and calling on Buddhist monks to help ease tensions.

“We would like to call upon the government to provide sufficient security and to protect the displaced people and to investigate and take legal measures as urgently as possible,” the statement from the Interfaith Friendship Organization said.

Myanmar: Myanmar’s army took control of a ruined central city on Saturday, imposing a tense calm after clashes between Buddhists and Muslims left piles of corpses in the streets and buildings ablaze in the worst sectarian bloodshed to hit the Southeast Asian nation this year.

Truckloads of soldiers patrolled Meikhtila, taking up positions at intersections and banks as authorities delivered food and water to some 6,000 displaced Muslims who fled to makeshift camps at a local stadium and a police station. The government put the death toll at 32, according to state television, which reported that bodies had been found as authorities began cleaning up the area on Saturday.

President Thein Sein, a former general who vowed to bring democracy to Myanmar after half a century of military rule, imposed a state of emergency in the region Friday in a bid to end clashes that began two days earlier.

The unrest was the first of its kind in the country since two similar episodes shook western Rakhine state last year, and the spread of sectarian conflict has underscored both the challenges of reform and the government’s failure to rein in anti-Muslim sentiment in a predominantly Buddhist nation. Even monks have armed themselves and taken advantage of newfound freedoms to stage anti-Muslim rallies.

It was not immediately clear which side bore the brunt of the latest unrest, but at least five mosques were torched, and terrified Muslims, who make up about 30 percent of Meikhtila’s 100,000 inhabitants, have stayed off the streets as their shops and homes burned and Buddhist mobs carrying machetes and hammers tried to stop firefighters from dousing the flames.

Residents complained that police had stood by and done little to stop the mayhem. But “calm has been restored since troops took charge of security,” said Win Htein, an opposition lawmaker from Meikhtila.

Some residents, who had cowered indoors since the mayhem began Wednesday, emerged from their homes to inspect the destruction.

Little appeared to be left of some palm tree-lined neighborhoods, though, where the legs of victims could be seen poking out from smoldering masses of twisted debris and ash. Broken glass, charred cars and motorcycles and overturned tables littered roads beside rows of burned-out homes and shops, evidence of the widespread chaos that swept the town.

Local businessman San Hlaing said he counted 28 bodies this week, all men, piled in groups around the town, including beside a highway.

There was no immediate sign of fresh violence Friday morning but the town of Meikhtila remained tense and dangerous, said Win Htein, a local lawmaker from the opposition National League for Democracy.

Fires set to Muslim homes continued to burn but angry Buddhist residents and monks prevented authorities from putting out the blazes, he said.

At least five mosques were torched during the violence that started Wednesday, reportedly triggered by an argument between a Muslim gold shop owner and his Buddhist customers. A Buddhist monk was among the first killed, inflaming tensions that led a Buddhist mob to rampage through a Muslim neighborhood.

Meikhtila is about 550 kilometers (340 miles) north of the main city of Yangon with a population of about 100,000 people, of which about a third are Muslims, Win Htein said. He said before this week’s violence, the community had 17 mosques.

It was difficult to determine the extent of destruction in the town because residents were too afraid to walk the streets and were sheltering in monasteries or other locations away from the violence.

“We don’t feel safe and we have now moved inside a monastery,” said Sein Shwe, a shop owner. “The situation is unpredictable and dangerous.”

Occasional isolated violence involving Myanmar’s majority Buddhist and minority Muslim communities has occurred for decades.

The violence in Meikhtila was the latest sectarian unrest after clashes between Rakhine Buddhists and Muslim Rohingya last year in western Rakhine state left more than 200 people dead and 100,000 homeless.

It is also the latest challenge for the government as it tries to keep peace in the country and navigate the transition from military rule to fledgling democracy.