Families of jailed Myanmar reporters appeal for release

YANGON: The wife of one of two Reuters journalists jailed in Myanmar made an emotional appeal on Tuesday to Aung San Suu Kyi to free her husband for the sake of their young daughter, as the leader comes under increasing criticism for her silence on the case.

Wa Lone, 32, and Kyaw Soe Oo, 28, were arrested while reporting on atrocities committed during the military’s bloody expulsion of some 700,000 Rohingya Muslims last year.

A Yangon court on Monday found them guilty under the Official Secrets Act and sentenced them to seven years in prison, sparking outrage from the UN, EU and US. Kyaw Soe Oo’s wife Chit Su Win, 23, broke down in tears as she asked the Nobel Peace Prize laureate to release her husband, the father of their three-year-old daughter.