Myanmar counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi defends arrest of Reuters journalists

Myanmar State Counsellor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi has defended the verdict on the arrest of the two Reuters journalists who were investigating the Rohingya crisis in the country.

She was speaking at the World Economic Forum on Thursday.

Revealing that the two journalists were jailed because they broke the "Official Secrets Act", she asserted: "If anyone feels there has been a miscarriage of justice I would like them to point it out... The judgement has nothing to do with freedom of expression but with the Official Secrets Act (OSA)."

She further underlined that those who feel the sentencing was wrong, they should appeal to the court. "If we believe in the rule of law, they have every right to appeal the judgment and to point out why the judgment was wrong," she said.

Two Reuters' journalists were detained in December 2017 while they were investigating the Rohingya crisis in the Rakhine state of Myanmar.

They were recently sentenced to seven years each in jail by a Yangon court for the breach of OSA. However, the accused journalists maintained that neither of them had done anything wrong.

Shortly after the announcement of the verdict, Reuters Editor-in-Chief Stephen Adler said that the conviction was "a sad day" for the organisation, the two men (Wa and Kyaw) and "the press everywhere."

Echoing similar sentiments, Human Rights Watch Deputy Asia Director Phil Robertson in a tweet called the conviction a hammer blow against media freedom in Myanmar.

-ANI