Three reporters from Myanmar were transferred to Bangkok yesterday where they will spend seven months behind bars after entering the kingdom illegally to flee persecution.
Kyaw Zeyar Win, Nay Thwin Nyein and Maneri Yee of the Democratic Voice of Burma had been fined and sentenced Friday in the Chiang Mai Provincial Court for illegally crossing the border despite calls for them to be granted protected status.
They were arrested last month along with two other Myanmar nationals. Their equipment was seized.
Human Rights Watch and the Committee to Protect Journalists had been among groups that called for Thailand to safeguard the detainees.
Thai Foreign Affairs spokesperson Tanee Sangrat said after they were arrested that the authorities would find a “humanitarian solution.”
Since staging the Feb. 1 coup, the junta has used its security forces to kill nearly 1,000 protesting civilians in the streets, shut down the media and thrown reporters in prison.
Two reporters from the same news outlet were arrested after the junta revoked its license in March. Democratic Voice of Burma, known as DVB, began as a Norwegian-based radio station in 1992 and began broadcasting out of Thailand in 2005. In 2012, after democratic reforms came to Myanmar, it opened an office in Yangon.
