Australian journalist Peter Greste, who spent more than a year imprisoned in an Egyptian jail, says he is "absolutely overjoyed" to hear two Reuters journalists jailed in Myanmar have been freed.
Reporters Wa Lone, 33, and Kyaw Soe Oo, 29, spent more than 500 days behind bars as part of a seven-year jail term after they were convicted of breaking the Official Secrets Act.
However, they were unexpectedly released on Tuesday when President Win Myint pardoned thousands of prisoners.
Greste, who spent 440 days in an Egyptian jail until his release in 2015, said he knew exactly how they would be feeling in this moment.
"It’s fantastic to hear that those guys have finally been released - I felt for them every single day that they were in prison," he told SBS News.
"These two guys have been through hell - they need some time to decompress, to recover, and then decide what they’ll do next. But I really do hope they’ll end up back in the newsroom."
Australian journalist Peter Greste says he was "overjoyed" when he heard two Reuters journalists had been freed from a Myanmar prison. Source: AAP
It is customary in Myanmar for authorities to free prisoners across the country around the time of the traditional New Year, which began on 17 April.
But Greste said the issue of press freedom in Myanmar needs to remain in focus.
"The fact that they were imprisoned at all I think is deeply troubling. It’s good news that they’re out, but I don’t think we can celebrate just yet," he said.
"I think it’s an acknowledgment by the authorities that there was a very serious injustice that was done here, that these guys never should have been imprisoned in the first place."
The two reporters were convicted in September and sentenced to seven years in jail in a case that raised questions about Myanmar’s progress toward democracy and sparked an outcry from diplomats and human rights advocates.
President Myint has pardoned thousands of other prisoners in mass amnesties since last month.
Reuters has said the two men did not commit any crime and had repeatedly called for their release.
Reuters journalists Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo have were imprisoned in Myanmar for over a year. Source: AAP
Before their arrest in December 2017, Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo had been working on an investigation into the killing of 10 Rohingya Muslim men and boys by security forces and Buddhist civilians in western Myanmar’s Rakhine State during an army crackdown that began in August 2017.
The operation sent more than 730,000 Rohingya fleeing to Bangladesh, according to UN estimates.
The report the two men authored, featuring testimony from perpetrators, witnesses and families of the victims, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for international reporting in May, adding to a number of accolades received by the pair for their journalism.
A spokesman for the Myanmar government could not immediately be reached for comment.
Myanmar’s Supreme Court had rejected the journalists’ final appeal in April.
They had petitioned the country’s top court, citing evidence of a police set-up and lack of proof of a crime, after the Yangon High Court dismissed an earlier appeal in January.
The reporters’ wives wrote a letter to the government in April pleading for a pardon, not, they said, because their husbands had done anything wrong, but because it would allow them to be released from prison and reunited with their families.
With Reuters
