Myanmar jails American journalist for 11 years

NAYPYIDAW • A court in military-ruled Myanmar yesterday jailed American journalist Danny Fenster for 11 years, said his lawyer and his employer, despite US calls for his release from what it said was unjust detention.

Fenster, 37, the managing editor of online magazine Frontier Myanmar, was found guilty of incitement and violations of immigration and unlawful associations laws, his magazine said, describing the sentences as "the harshest possible under the law".

He is the first Western journalist sentenced to prison in recent years in Myanmar, where a Feb 1 coup by the military against an elected government led by Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi ended a decade of tentative steps towards democracy and triggered nationwide protests.

"There is absolutely no basis to convict Danny of these charges," said Mr Thomas Kean, editor-in-chief of Frontier Myanmar, one of the country's top independent news outlets.

"Everyone at Frontier is disappointed and frustrated at this decision. We just want to see Danny released as soon as possible so he can go home to his family."

Fenster was arrested while trying to leave the country in May and has since been held in Yangon's notorious Insein prison, where hundreds of opponents of the Tatmadaw (or military) were jailed, many beaten and tortured, during decades of dictatorship.

He was charged with additional, and more serious, offences of sedition and violations of the terrorism act earlier this week, without an explanation by the authorities. Those charges are punishable by a maximum 20 years in prison each.

Mr Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director of Human Rights Watch, said Fenster's jailing was also intended as warnings to the United States and the media.

"The junta's rationale for this outrageous, rights abusing sentence is first to shock and intimidate all remaining Burmese journalists inside Myanmar by punishing a foreign journalist this way," he said.

"The second message is more strategic, focused on sending a message to the US that the Tatmadaw's generals don't appreciate being hit with economic sanctions and can bite back with hostage diplomacy," he said.

Fenster's family has repeatedly called for his release, saying they were heartbroken about his detention. His trial had not been made public and a spokesman for the junta did not respond to a request for comment.

The US has been pushing for Fenster's release, with the State Department earlier saying that his detention was "profoundly unjust" and "plain for the world to see", urging the junta to release him.

The Myanmar authorities had overlooked Fenster in a recent amnesty for hundreds of people detained over anti-junta protests, which included some journalists.

During nearly half a century of harsh rule by the military, news reporting was tightly controlled by the state, but Myanmar's media blossomed after the a quasi-civilian government introduced tentative reforms from 2011.

Since the February coup, however, the military has rescinded media licences, curbed the Internet as well as satellite broadcasts and arrested dozens of journalists, in what human rights groups have called an assault on the truth.

REUTERS