YANGON, Myanmar – Two Reuters journalists jailed in Myanmar walked free on Tuesday from a prison on the outskirt of Yangon, after they were convicted of breaking the Official Secrets Act spending more than 500 days behind bars.
The two reporters, Wa Lone, 33, and Kyaw Soe Oo, 29, had been convicted in September and sentenced to seven years in jail, in a case that raised questions about Myanmar’s progress toward democracy and sparked an outcry from diplomats and human rights advocates, Reuters reported.
Their release come after the President Win Myint has pardoned thousands of other prisoners in mass amnesties since last month, which is customary in Myanmar for authorities to free prisoners across the country around the time of the traditional New Year that began on April 17.
Before their arrest in December 2017, the two had been working on an investigation into the killing of 10 Rohingya Muslim men and boys by security forces and Buddhist civilians in western Myanmar’s Rakhine State during an army crackdown that began in August 2017, according to sources.
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