26 November 2019
YANGON (Reuters) - Myanmar police have charged five journalists with “disclosing state secrets” after their newspaper carried a story about an alleged chemical weapons factory, state media reported Sunday.
The trial of four reporters and the head of Unity Journal began on February 14 in Pakokku, a town in the country’s central region where the military facility is located, the state-run New Light of Myanmar newspaper said.
The New Light of Myanmar said charges under the Official Secrets Act also included “trespassing on the restricted area of the factory”, but the newspaper did not disclose the nature of the facility.
Government spokesman Ye Htut told local media last week that the factory did not produce chemical weapons. He could not be reached for comment on Sunday.
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) on February 3 called for the suspects’ release, saying “journalists should not be threatened or arrested for reporting on topics of national and international importance”.
The Unity Journal story claimed the secret facility built in 2009 consisted of tunnels burrowed under 3,000 acres of land and quoted workers as saying the factory produced chemical weapons, according to the CPJ, which noted reports that authorities confiscated copies of the publication.
Myanmar’s former junta, which handed power to a quasi-civilian government in 2011, has repeatedly denied accusations that it used chemical weapons against ethnic insurgent groups.
RUHtGIX9uxFuP_6sl0ws
No comments:
Post a Comment