Amal Clooney calls on Myanmar's Suu Kyi to pardon Reuters reporters

[rooster59]

Amal Clooney calls on Myanmar's Suu Kyi to pardon Reuters reporters

By Michelle Nichols

 

Reuters Editor-in-Chief Stephen Adler and attorney Amal Clooney participate in the Press Behind Bars: Undermining Justice and Democracy event during the 73rd session of the United Nations General Assembly at U.N. headquarters in New York, U.S., September 28, 2018. REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton

 

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The families of two Reuters reporters imprisoned in Myanmar have asked for a pardon, human rights lawyer Amal Clooney told a press freedom event at the United Nations on Friday as she pressed the country's civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi to agree.

 

Clooney is a member of the legal team representing Reuters journalists Wa Lone, 32, and Kyaw Soe Oo, 28, who were convicted on Sept. 3 under the colonial-era Official Secrets Act and sentenced to seven years in prison.

 

She said the reporters' wives wrote "a really heartfelt letter" to the government about a week ago pleading for a pardon, not because their husbands had done anything wrong, but because it would allow them to be released from prison.

 

Clooney said Myanmar's President Win Myint would make the decision to issue a pardon in consultation with Suu Kyi.

 

In a message to Suu Kyi, Clooney told Reuters: "You fought for so many years to be freed from the same prison where they now sit and now you have the power to actually remedy this injustice today if you wanted to."

 

The Myanmar mission to the United Nations did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Myanmar government spokesman Zaw Htay has said the court was independent and followed due process in the case.

 

The reporters pleaded not guilty and have been detained since December. Kyaw Soe Oo has a three-year-old daughter. Last month, Wa Lone's wife gave birth to their first child, a girl, whom Clooney said Wa Lone has not yet met.

 

The reporters had been working on a Reuters investigation into the killing of 10 Rohingya Muslim men and boys by security forces and local Buddhists in western Myanmar's Rakhine state during an army crackdown that began in August last year. The operation sent nearly 700,000 people fleeing to Bangladesh.

 

A U.N mandated fact-finding mission said Myanmar's military carried out mass killings and gang rapes of Muslim Rohingya with "genocidal intent" and called for top generals to be prosecuted. Myanmar rejected the findings.

 

Suu Kyi said at a forum in Vietnam this month that the case had nothing to do with freedom of expression. She said the reporters had been sentenced for handling official secrets and "were not jailed because they were journalists."

 

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres earlier this month called on the Myanmar government to pardon and release the Reuters journalists as soon as possible.

 

"This case is about much more than two innocent men," Clooney told Reuters after an event hosted by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) on the sidelines of the annual U.N. General Assembly on Friday.

 

"If you care about press freedom you care about this case ... Without a free press you cannot have democracy because you don't know how to judge what your government's doing," she said.

 

The CPJ event also focussed on the cases of imprisoned journalists in Egypt, Kyrgyzstan and Bangladesh.

Representatives for the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Australia, Lebanon and other countries attended.

 

The CPJ said a record 262 journalists were jailed worldwide in 2017, with Turkey, China, and Egypt responsible for imprisoning 134 of those journalists.

 

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2018-09-29

 

 

[Sydebolle]

Well, then I have only two things for Mrs Clooney; why don’t you voice your concern over the tens of thousands inmates in US prisons; as statistics show, the US has among the highest inmate figures of innocent people. Secondly I can assume that she will not travel to Burma again as the militia proved that they do not care who has what to say about a domestic issue within Burma. 

[atyclb]

34 minutes ago, Sydebolle said:

Well, then I have only two things for Mrs Clooney; why don’t you voice your concern over the tens of thousands inmates in US prisons; as statistics show, the US has among the highest inmate figures of innocent people. Secondly I can assume that she will not travel to Burma again as the militia proved that they do not care who has what to say about a domestic issue within Burma. 

 

 

more effective virtue signaling advocating for the entire world except in the country she lives in. i recall george clooney talking so much about the need to help immigrants yet he. despite owning several mansions in different countries has yet to house any of the less fortunate.

[metisdead]

A troll post has been removed. 

[hotchilli]

She's become a toothless minister now, a puppet for the military ministers to pull the strings on !

Edited September 30, 2018 by hotchilli

[Thailand]

ASSK sold her soul, the lady is no more.

[SuperTed]

Truly sad, but Suu Kyi should have had her Nobel revoked last year with the Rohinga genocide.


Sent from my iPad using Thaivisa Connect

[thaiguzzi]

Re, Amal C.

As per usual, the bile and jealousy knows no bounds on this forum. Nobody got Jack ShIt to say something good about anybody or anything.

 Stupendous!

Me personally, think she's doing great, and i appreciate people like her husband taking a stand on important issues we face in the world. He could just sit on his arse all day and moan on forums or play golf with his buddies.

I saw her interview on the BBC yesterday, she talks eloquently and intelligently (and goddamn sexy - but that is besides the point - sorry Amal).

 Very attractive woman who is prolly extremely good company.

Edited September 30, 2018 by thaiguzzi

[cooked]

6 hours ago, SuperTed said:

Truly sad, but Suu Kyi should have had her Nobel revoked last year with the Rohinga genocide.


Sent from my iPad using Thaivisa Connect

What <deleted> genocide? You mean the one that was being preached in mosques in the Rakhine in the days and weeks before ARSA started attacking police posts and non-Muslims?

There are more Roros now than there were a year ago.

[cooked]

6 hours ago, hotchilli said:

She's become a toothless minister now, a puppet for the military ministers to pull the strings on !

Your lack of knowledge of the ongoing struggle for democracy in Myanmar is showing.