#Myanmar #junta #accuses #Japanese #journalist #promoting #dissent
A Japanese journalist detained in Myanmar has been accused of violating immigration law and encouraging resistance to the military, the junta said on Thursday.
Myanmar’s military has cracked down on press freedom since its coup last year, arresting reporters and photographers and revoking broadcasting licenses as the country plunged into chaos.
Toru Kubota, who was arrested while covering a protest in Yangon last week, “has been charged under Section 505(a) and Immigration Law 13-1,” the junta said in a statement.
505(a) – a statute criminalizing the promotion of dissent against the military and carrying a maximum penalty of three years in prison – has been widely used in combating dissent.
Violation of Immigration Law 13-1 carries a maximum sentence of five years imprisonment.
Filmmaker Kubota, 26, was arrested near an anti-government rally in Yangon along with two Burmese citizens.
After the charges were brought, he was transferred from police custody to Yangon’s Insein Prison, a security source told AFP and asked not to be identified.
“He is in good health and embassy officials have already visited him at the police station where he was being held,” a security source told AFP.
According to a profile on FilmFreeway, he has previously directed documentaries on Myanmar’s Rohingya Muslim minority and “Refugees and Ethnic Issues in Myanmar.”
He is the fifth foreign journalist to be arrested in Myanmar after US citizens Nathan Maung and Danny Fenster, Robert Bociaga of Poland and Yuki Kitazumi of Japan, all of whom were eventually freed and deported.
Window, who was arrested in May last year while attempting to leave the country, faced a closed trial in Insein on charges of unlawful association, incitement to the military and visa violations.
He was sentenced to 11 years in prison before being pardoned and deported.
Tokyo has longstanding ties with the country’s military, and Japan is one of the top donors to Myanmar.
More than 2,100 people have been killed and nearly 15,000 arrested in the crackdown on dissidents in Myanmar, according to a local monitoring group.
According to monitoring group Reporting ASEAN, 48 journalists have been in detention across the country since March this year.
Only China jailed more reporters than Myanmar last year, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.
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