Aun San Suu Kyi defends verdict on Reuters arrested journos

Colombo (News 1st) - The verdict passed on the two Reuters journalists on 03rd September confining them to prison for a period of seven years created a huge controversy where various sources took to criticize the decision. They had been indicted with charges of violating the Official State Secrets Act. The journalists had allegedly breached the law while investigations on the massacre of 10 Rohingya men by the military at a village called Inn Din in Rakhine Estate were underway. The arrested journalists had been cornered while carrying official police documents given to them by the police officers in a restaurant, which they (journalists) later claimed was an intentional setup to quieten them. As the de facto leader of Myanmar, the Nobel peace prize winner, was intensely pressured to comment on both the Rohingya massacre and the arrested journalists.  In such a backdrop, State Counsellor of Myanmar, Aung San Suu Kyi boldly took to defend the verdict passed on the two arrested journalists. Breaking her silence, at an International Economics Conference in Vietnam, she said that the case against the Reuters journalists, by all means, confirmed to the rule of law. She also added that the journos had not been jailed because they were journalists but were jailed because they had breached the Official Secrets Act and that their conviction had "nothing to do with the freedom of expression at all".