Four reporters and the chief executive officer of a magazine in Myanmar have been sentenced to 10 years at hard labor in prison on a national security charge for investigative stories about a weapons factory.
All five men from the Yangon-based Unity journal were sentenced by a court yesterday 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.
The weekly magazine published stories in January alleging the military had seized more than 3,000 acres of farmland in Myanmar's central Magwe Region to construct a weapons factory.
It reported allegations that the factory would produce chemical weapons, also printing a denial by authorities of the latter allegation.
