A judge in Myanmar has rejected a motion to dismiss the case made against two Reuters journalists accused of breaking the Official Secrets Act while investigating a massacre of Rohingya Muslims.

Reporters Wa Lone, 32, and Kyaw Soe Oo, 27, were detained in December and accused of possessing material relating to security operations in Rakhine state that was handed to them by the police.

Myanmar has faced global condemnation and accusations of extrajudicial killings, ethnic cleansing and genocide as about 700,000 Rohingya Muslims fled Rakhine for Bangladesh after a military crackdown on insurgents.



The government rejects the allegations and says it was defending itself against attacks from the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army that took place in August.

Q&A Who are the Rohingya and what happened to them in Myanmar? Show Described as the world’s most persecuted people, 1.1 million Rohingya people live in Myanmar. They live predominately in Rakhine state, where they have co-existed uneasily alongside Buddhists for decades. Rohingya people say they are descendants of Muslims, perhaps Persian and Arab traders, who came to Myanmar generations ago. Unlike the Buddhist community, they speak a language similar to the Bengali dialect of Chittagong in Bangladesh. The Rohingya are reviled by many in Myanmar as illegal immigrants and suffer from systematic discrimination. The Myanmar government treats them as stateless people, denying them citizenship. Stringent restrictions have been placed on Rohingya people’s freedom of movement, access to medical assistance, education and other basic services. Violence broke out in northern Rakhine state in August 2017, when militants attacked government forces. In response, security forces supported by Buddhist militia launched a “clearance operation” that ultimately killed at least 1,000 people and forced more than 600,000 to flee their homes. The UN’s top human rights official said the military’s response was "clearly disproportionate” to insurgent attacks and warned that Myanmar’s treatment of its Rohingya minority appears to be a "textbook example” of ethnic cleansing. When Aung San Suu Kyi rose to power there were high hopes that the Nobel peace prize winner would help heal Myanmar's entrenched ethnic divides. But she has been accused of standing by while violence is committed against the Rohingya. In 2019, judges at the international criminal court authorised a full-scale investigation into the allegations of mass persecution and crimes against humanity. On 10 December 2019, the international court of justice in The Hague opened a case alleging genocide brought by the Gambia. Rebecca Ratcliffe Photograph: Tracey Nearmy/AAP

The two reporters have been held in Insein prison in Yangon since their arrest while facing hearings to determine whether the case will go to trial, with 17 out of 25 witnesses having given testimony.



Their lawyers asked the court to dismiss the case last week, citing in part troubling discrepancies in witness statements, but the motion was swiftly rejected in a Yangon courtroom packed with supporters, family and media.

“The court decided that the proposal from the defendants’ lawyer to release the defendants before all the witnesses were cross-examined has been rejected,” the judge, Ye Lwin, said.

The pair had been investigating a massacre of 10 Rohingya men on 2 September in the Rakhine village of Inn Din that was carried out by security forces and local residents.

The military admitted the atrocity took place and Reuters later published the story while the reporters were in prison.

In a rare punishment in a country where the military has long operated with impunity, seven soldiers were sentenced to jail with hard labour for their part in the killings on Tuesday.



The army has claimed the Rohingya men were terrorists, but has not presented any evidence to back up the claim.

Wa Lone referred to the sentencing of the soldiers as he was being directed back into the police van after the hearing.

“Those who killed people in the mass killing were given a sentence of 10 years. We were simply trying to find out the news and report this and we are facing a trial that could result in us going to prison for 14 years,” he said.

One of his lawyers, Than Zaw Aung, also compared the cases: “My question is why are the journalists still in detention in prison if their report is true.”

The case against the journalists has proceeded despite international calls for their release. Reuters announced last month that the prominent human rights lawyer Amal Clooney had joined the legal team.

The president of Reuters, Stephen J Adler, said the company was deeply disappointed with the court’s decision.

“We believe there are solid grounds for the court to dismiss this matter and to release our journalists. Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo were reporting on issues in Myanmar in an independent and impartial way,” he said.

“They have not violated any laws in the course of their newsgathering and were simply doing their jobs.”

Family members of the reporters were in tears after the ruling, but Wa Lone, who turned 32 on Wednesday and was brought cake by his friends, expressed optimism.

“I believe in democracy. I also believe that one day we will be released because of freedom of expression,” he said.