Foreign reporters working for Turkey's national broadcaster will likely be released from jail in January. They were imprisoned for flying a drone near the capital's parliament building.
Image: picture-alliance/AP Photo/A. Shine
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Myanmar will drop pending charges for two foreign journalists and their local fixers, local police announced on Tuesday.
They are serving two-month prison sentences under a colonial-era aircraft law. They also faced further charges for importing the drone with the potential for three years in jail, while the two foreign nationals also faced immigration charges with a potential five year penalty.
Police Lieutenant Tun Tun Win and an immigration officer asked a Naypyitaw courtroom to drop the additional charges.
Tun Tun Win told Reuters news agency that senior police officials had ordered the case dropped because the four did not mean to endanger national security by flying the drone.
He said the decision was also intended "to forward the relationship between countries," referring to the two journalists' home countries.
The judge is now expected to dismiss the case at the next hearing on Thursday. They could be released in early January.
"The outlook is good," Aung Myo Kyaw, the lawyer for Mok Choy Lin, told the AFP news agency when asked whether the journalists would be released soon.
The Reuters reporters had worked on stories about the military crackdown on the Rohingya minority in Rakhine State and were arrested on December 12.
Major governments, including the US, the European Union and Canada, and top United Nations' officials, have demanded their release.
At least 11 journalists have been arrested in Myanmar this year.
aw/msh (AP, AFP, Reuters, dpa)
Rohingya children: Raped, kidnapped, orphaned
The plight of the Rohingya Muslims forced to flee the atrocities committed by militants and the army in Myanmar is hard to stomach. The most vulnerable are children, as John Owens' photo series shows.
Image: DW/J. Owens
Shot and stabbed
Since August, more than 600,000 Rohingya have fled from Myanmar into Bangladesh. "The day the military came, they burnt down the village and shot my mother as she was trying to escape. My father couldn’t walk, so they stabbed him. I saw this with my own eyes," says 10-year-old Mohammed Belal who managed to run away from his village.
Image: DW/J. Owens
Haunted by the trauma
Mohammed’s sister Nur also watched the slaughter. She and her brother now live in a shelter for unaccompanied children in Bangladesh. She can play there and gets regular meals, a stark contrast to her journey from Myanmar where she and her brother nearly starved. But she is still haunted by the trauma of the recent weeks. "I miss my parents, my home, my country," she says.
Image: DW/J. Owens
Deep-rooted conflict
The conflict, which has been going on for 70 years and is rooted in the post-World War II social organization of the country, has claimed more than 2,000 victims since 2016, including the mother of 12-year-old Rahman, above. "They set fire to my home, and my mother was ill, so she could not leave," he says.
Image: DW/J. Owens
Save the children
Dilu-Aara, 5, came to the camp with her sister Rojina after she witnessed her parents being murdered by the military. "I was crying all the time and the bullets were flying over our heads. I escaped somehow." The international aid agency Save the Children is helping minors who come to Kutupalong without parents. Children make up to 60 percent of all Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh.
Image: DW/J. Owens
Hunted like animals
Jaded Alam is among the hundreds of kids who came to Kutupalong without parents. Fortunately, his aunt cares for him — and very well, he admits. Jaded grew up in a village called Mandi Para where he used to love playing football, but everything changed when the military attacked. "They told us to leave our home. When I was running with my parents, they shot them. They died on the spot," he says.
Image: DW/J. Owens
Child abductions
Not all families have been separated during their plight, however. Rahman Ali has been scouring the refugee camp for weeks now after his 10-year-old son Zifad disappeared. Rumors of child abductions have swirled around the camp for years, and Rahman fears his son has fallen prey to human traffickers. "I can't eat, I can’t sleep. I’m so upset! It’s like I’ve gone mad."
Image: DW/J. Owens
"My mind is not normal"
When the shooting started, Sokina Khatun did all she could to protect her children — but she couldn't save Yasmine,15, and Jamalita, 20, who were in a neighboring village at the time. "Their throats were cut in front of their grandparents," she says. "I was numb, I couldn’t feel the pain. Right now my mind is not normal," she says. She managed to rescue nine of her offspring.
Image: DW/J. Owens
Attacked, raped and robbed
Yasmine thinks she might be 15 but looks considerably younger. In her village, she used to play with marbles and run in the nearby fields, but different memories haunt her now: The attack by Myanmar forces, the beating and murder of her beloved father and brothers, and the rape by a group of Burmese soldiers who also robbed her. "I felt lots of pain in my body," she says.
