A court in Myanmar on Monday jailed BBC Burmese Service reporter Nay Myo Lin for three months with hard labour for allegedly attacking a policeman while covering student protests last year in Mandalay.
A Mandalay court found Lin, 40, guilty of assaulting an on-duty police officer who had reportedly knocked a man off a motorbike. The charge was based on video footage and eyewitness accounts of the incident, which took place as police tried to block the route of a demonstration of student activists on motor scooters protesting against what they considered a stifling education bill in March 2015.
Numerous arrests were made during clashes that erupted after riot police with batons attacked the peaceful demonstration and many student activists are still on trial. The police and judiciary in Myanmar are both overseen by the home ministry, which remains under the control of the country’s military.
Nay Myo Lin’s wife reportedly said her husband accidently pushed the police officer while filming police trying to stop the protesters. The Foreign Correspondent’s Club of Myanmar similarly maintained that any injury was unintentional.
The journalist’s lawyer said Nay Myo Lin would appeal the verdict, which he said was too harsh and a great disappointment, coming under a new administration on which many people in the country have set high hopes. The BBC has said it would work with Nay Myo Lin’s lawyer to support the appeal.
Soe Myint, founder, editor-in-chief and managing director of Mizzima Media, the International Press Institute (IPI)’s 2007 Free Media Pioneer Award winner, said that he agreed that the appeal “should be reviewed and considered by the court to reduce the sentencing”.
The Foreign Correspondent’s Club also denounced the verdict and the harshness of the punishment, which, it said, could “tarnish the image of the new civilian government” elected in March after two decades of military rule in Myanmar.
IPI Director of Advocacy and Communications Steven M. Ellis raised similar concerns, recalling that at the last IPI World Congress in Doha, Qatar in March 2016, IPI delegates from Myanmar had spoken positively about the post-election landscape in their country, although they did maintain that many reforms were necessary, including laws better protecting the media and freedom of expression.
“We are concerned not only by the severity of the punishment given to Nay Myo Lin, but by the fact that it indicates that Myanmar has yet to make a clean break with a past characterised by a lack of press freedom or respect for the role of journalists,” Ellis said.