Myanmar: Jailed Reuters journalists not to seek appeal

YANGON, Myanmar

Two Pulitzer-winning Reuters journalists jailed in Myanmar have decided not to make any further appeals to the country’s supreme court after several courts denied their appeal, family members announced on Thursday.

Wa Lone, 32, and Kyaw Soe Oo, 28, were each sentenced to seven years in prison last September over their alleged breach of a colonial-era law for investigating the killing of 10 Rohingya men in the Myanmar’s Rakhine state in 2017.

Several courts in the country including the supreme court have rejected previous appeals by the two, upholding their imprisonments as they were excluded from two recent mass government pardons.

The pair have given up on the courts, though they still have a chance to make a second appeal to the Supreme Court, said Pan Ei Mon, wife of Wa Lone.

"We are very disappointed on the judiciary system," she said.

The wives of the two journalists imprisoned in Yangon’s infamous Insein Prison received the UNESCO/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize on Thursday on their behalf.

She expressed hope that the government would release them in a third round of presidential pardons.

"That’s the most possible way, so we have high hopes on the next pardon," she said.

The pair were excluded from two rounds of presidential pardons in the wake of the country’s mid-April new year, bringing amnesty for more than 16,000 prisoners.

Presidential Spokesman Win Myint told local media late last month that a third round of pardons was planned for the release of some political prisoners and members of ethnic rebel groups.