Myanmar Begins Clampdown on Media, Slams 10-Year Jail on Journalists for Trespassing

July 10, 2014 – An Gail of media repression is currently sweeping through Myanmar where four reporters and the chief executive officer of a Yangon-based Unity journal have been sentenced to 10 years with hard labor in prison.

They were jailed on a national security charge for investigating stories about a weapons factory.

They were sentenced by a court Thursday for violating the 1923 Burma State Secrets Act pertaining to trespassing in a prohibited area with prejudicial purpose. The law was enacted when Myanmar was a British colony called Burma.

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According to AFP, the weekly magazine published stories in January alleging that the military had seized more than 3,000 acres (1,200 hectares) of farmland in Myanmar’s central Magwe Region to construct a weapons factory and that the factory would produce chemical weapons