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Amal Clooney, a prominent human rights lawyer, has called on Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi to pardon two imprisoned Myanmar journalists, saying the Nobel Peace Prize holds the key to their release .
Clooney, at an event on press freedom at the United Nations, sought to link Suu Kyi's former iconic status as a human rights defender to the demand for liberation of Kyaw Soe Oo, 28 years old and Wa Lone, 32 years old.
The two fathers, accused of violating Myanmar's state secrets law while reporting a massacre of Rohingya Muslims, were jailed for seven years earlier this month, fueling international outrage.
Clooney said the journalists had been arrested in an attempt by Myanmar to prevent Reuters from publishing an article on the extrajudicial executions of 10 Rohingya men and boys. She noted that Suu Kyi had already "allowed young people to hope for a free Myanmar and respectful of the rule of law".
"She knows that mass murder is not a state secret and that exposing it does not turn a journalist into a spy," Clooney said of Suu Kyi. "She said that a political prisoner is one too many, so we hope that since these are the principles she herself has adopted, she will intervene and try to correct an injustice in this case."
About 700,000 Rohingya Muslims fled to Bangladesh as part of a brutal military campaign conducted in Myanmar with a Buddhist majority. The Myanmar army is accused of rape, killings and mass shootings against thousands of homes following the Rohingya militants' attack on security outposts in August 2017.
"They should be worried about whether or not to win the Pulitzer Prize, not if they can get out of jail before 2024," Clooney said of reporters. She said their families had asked the government for pardon, which should be granted by the country's president in consultation with Suu Kyi.
Suu Kyi rejected criticism of the trial sentence earlier this month. "The case was held in open court," said Suu Kyi. "If someone feels that there has been a miscarriage of justice, I would like him to point it out."
An email requesting comments from the Myanmar Mission to the United Nations was not immediately responded to.
Stephen Adler, president and editor-in-chief of Reuters, said the arrest of his journalists "clearly aimed to unmask Reuters sources and prevent us from publishing the report of the massacre." "To other journalists around the world.
"We are aware of the massacre because they did what good reporters do," Adler said. "Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo went out with an open mind and left with facts. Except they could not really leave, right? Only the facts have. In an astonishing miscarriage of justice, our journalists were installed and arrested. "
Rohingya Muslims have long been treated as foreigners in Buddhist majority Myanmar, even though their families have lived in the country for generations. Almost all have been denied citizenship since 1982, rendering them stateless.
Friday's discussion was organized by the Committee for the Protection of Journalists, which also highlighted the repression and abuse of journalists in countries such as Bangladesh, Egypt and Kyrgyzstan.
The Reuters case drew worldwide attention to how Myanmar's long-standing democratic reforms were blocked by the civilian government of Suu Kyi, who took power in 2016. The country was under military control and military for more than five decades.
