Myanmar court sentences man to 13 years imprisonment for working illegally with foreign media

Myanmar man gets 13 years jail for media contacts

YANGON, Myanmar — A court in military-ruled Myanmar handed down a 13-year prison sentence to a man accused of working illegally for foreign media organizations, a lawyer said Friday.

Ngwe Soe Lin was arrested in June last year after leaving an Internet cafe. A special court inside Yangon’s notorious Insein prison found him guilty of violating immigration laws and the Electronics Act, which regulates all forms of electronic communication, attorney Aung Thein said.

“There is no proof that he was working for any foreign media and there was no evidence that he had broken the immigration law,” said Aung Thein.

Ngwe Soe Lin will appeal the conviction, which was handed down Wednesday.

Exiled Myanmar nationals provide the main source of uncensored news in Myanmar, including online magazines and radio and satellite television stations such as the Norway-based Democratic Voice of Burma.

The government controls all electronic media and daily newspapers inside the country, and tightly regulates magazines. It also keeps the Internet under close control and has arrested several bloggers.

A court in central Myanmar, also known as Burma, handed down a 20-year prison sentence in December under the Electronic Act to a freelance reporter, Hla Hla Win, who worked for the Democratic Voice of Burma. Myint Naing, a colleague of Hla Hla Win, received a 25-year sentence.

According to the Burma Media Association, which is based in neighboring Thailand, some 14 reporters were arrested in Myanmar in 2009.