Detained Reuters journalist Wa Lone speaks to the media while leaving Insein court in Yangon, Myanmar July 9, 2018. REUTERS/Ann Wang

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Union on Monday called on Myanmar to drop charges against two Reuters reporters after a court charged them with obtaining secret state documents.

Wa Lone, 32, and Kyaw Soe Oo, 28, have been detained in Myanmar since December 2017. At the time of their arrest, they had been working on an investigation into the killing of 10 Rohingya Muslim men and boys in a village in Rakhine state.

“The European Union expects the charges against the two journalists prosecuted for merely exercising their rights to freedom of expression and carrying out their jobs to be dropped and for them to be released immediately so they can be reunited with their families and resume their vital work,” a spokeswoman for the European Union’s foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said in a statement.