Burma/Myanmar — Two Reuters journalists were arrested on December 12, and have recently been charged under the “Official Secrets Act.” The two journalists, Ko Wa Lone and Ko Kyaw Soe Oo, had previously reported on the violence in Rakhine state with the Rohingya people. More often than not, the government tends to keep tight control over their media outlets — for example, a journalist could face up to 15 years in prison if they commit “any act detrimental to the security of the State or prevalence of law and order or community peace and tranquility or national solidarity or national economy or national culture” in regards to their written or broadcast content. However, the court is claiming that this was a matter of national security, and that the journalists were in possession of what is essentially classified material.
Local news outlets and families of the journalists have reported that the two were invited to the police officers’ house, and subsequently handed the documents. Before they could get the chance to read them, they were detained by police. According to the Official Secrets Act, the document doesn’t necessarily even have to be labelled secret or classified like in the United States — people can be imprisoned for possessing information “intended to be, directly or indirectly, useful to an enemy.” The documents in question have not been released.
There have been no reports as to punitive actions toward the police officers that allegedly handed over the material, though they did appear in court. There has not yet been a verdict, and the course are still deliberating whether or not the two will be eligible for bail. They could each face up to 14 years in a Burmese prison under these charges.
The two had worked with Reuters in reporting on the Rohingya crisis that has led 655,000 Rohingya Muslims fleeing over the border and into Bangladesh. Many civilians have been killed — in the first month of fighting, Doctors Without Borders reported over 1,200 children under the age of five were killed, most of which in person by Burmese soldiers.
The Official Secrets Act was instated in 1923 under British Colonial Rule. The part of the act that Ko Wa Lone and Ko Kyaw Soe Oo have been charged with reads as follows:
3. (1) If any person for any purpose prejudicial to the safety or interests of the State—
…
(c) obtains, collects, records or publishes or communicates to any other person any secret
official code or password, or any sketch, plan, model, article or note or other document or
information which is calculated to be or might be or is intended to be, directly or
indirectly, useful to an enemy.”
What constitutes the “enemy” here, how these documents may have “directly or indirectly” been useful to an enemy, and even the basic nature of the documents found, all still remain to be seen. The U.S., U.K. and Canadian governments have all urged the Burmese government to release the journalists, and have claimed that this was an attempt to stifle freedom of the press, not an effort to keep national security intact.
Featured image courtesy of the Associated Press.
Join our community. To comment on this article please join/login.
Here’s a sample of the comments on this post.
.
…Oh, and those of you wondering why so many of the laws bypassing the Bill of Rights not bounced as unconstitutional by the Supreme Court… A majority abide by the old Roman Empire doctrine… “Inter arma enim silent lÄ“gÄ“s…” (“In time of war the law is silent…”)
-YP-
Luke,
…I think too that it is a mix… but particularly re he Rohingya, her silence is such that I suspect that much of her fight for “freedom” in Myanmar… was for Buddhist
residents of Myanmar.
…Meanwhile the House has approved extending the “temporary” measure re phone intercepts of innocent American nationals with overseas dealings. But this is doubtless only until the end of the “War on Terror…” Large hunks of the Bill of Rights will just have to remain in stasis until that war ends.
…But, didn’t George W. Bush say that the War on Terror would last the rest of our lives and probably the lives of our children as well? So… say, a century from now do we get the rest of the Bill of Rights back, or will that be considered a “moot” point?
-Yankee Papa-
“But ‘good intentions of those in office’ must not be the standard… but rather the laws themselves.” Well said.
You simply cannot rely on the good will of those in charge, and the more power given to them the more regulatory mechanisms you need in place to keep them from abusing their power. It’s either that or don’t give them that power in the first place! An option that Burma has unfortunately not had for a very long time.
The US was a little blinded (myself included) when Aung San Suu Kyi finally took her place in the government. Now it seems she is either less awesome than we though, apathetic toward the Rohingya, or simply a figurehead with no real power… I’m not sure (probably a mix). Suffice to say that her de facto leadership was not the cure-all that many thought it would be.
Luke,
Unlike Iraq, which was a one family kleptocracy, Myanmar’s government has a network of military families going back to the good old days when they collaborated with the Japanese. By now, it should be obvious to any cheeseburger that the “reforms” promised to the Obama administration were just so much smoke. Myanmar is a Third Reich without Hitler and without the Swastikas… just the oppressive government.
One other comment. When I was in Rhodesia, I had a problem with the various “emergency regulations” set up as embellishments of original British bureaucratic regs… (Your example of a 1923 Colonial regulation…) Rhodesia enforced the “emergency regulations” in an admittedly benevolent manner. But “good intentions of those in office” must not be the standard… but rather the laws themselves.
When the Marxists got into power in 1980… they really needed to add nothing to the emergency regulations that they found in place (and would enforce somewhat less benevolently) except for one authorizing summary executions.
Something to keep in mind in the U.S. when one administration requests “temporary measures” that may well be interpreted differently by later administrations…
One friend of mine had an invention of his “silenced” in the 1970s by the NSA (See Nicolai, Carl in “The Puzzle Palace”). Their authority was a power listed in a “State of Emergency” declared by Harry Truman during the Korean War that nobody had bothered to lift…
http://www.etoan.com/phasorphone-secret.html
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/5b28cf698136fcaba8c679fe0dbbf99dd7f495d85eb3eae7b1cd8fd3e9d9f525.jpg
-Yankee Papa-