Two Reuters journalists arrested in Mynamar

Two Reuters journalists have been arrested in Myanmar and accused of illegally possessing government documents.

Richard C. Paddock of the New York Times reports, “The two reporters, Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo, were arrested Tuesday night in northern Yangon. They were said to have documents relating to violence in Rakhine State in western Myanmar. A campaign of killings, rape and arson carried out in Rakhine by Myanmar’s military has driven more than 620,000 Rohingya Muslims across the border into Bangladesh since August.

“‘We are urgently seeking more information about the circumstances of their arrest and their current situation,’ Abbe Serphos, global communications chief for Reuters, said of the reporters.

“The United States Embassy called the arrests ‘highly irregular’ and said they occurred after the reporters were invited to meet with police officials.

“‘For a democracy to succeed, journalists need to be able to do their jobs freely,’ the embassy said in a statement. ‘We urge the government to explain these arrests and allow immediate access to the journalists.'”

Read more here.

Chris Roush

Chris Roush was the dean of the School of Communications at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut. He was previously Walter E. Hussman Sr. Distinguished Professor in business journalism at UNC-Chapel Hill. He is a former business journalist for Bloomberg News, Businessweek, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Tampa Tribune and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. He is the author of the leading business reporting textbook "Show me the Money: Writing Business and Economics Stories for Mass Communication" and "Thinking Things Over," a biography of former Wall Street Journal editor Vermont Royster.