Burma News International (BNI) urges the Myanmar government at Nay Pyidaw to review the case related to a senior journalist working for British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) and pardon Ko Nay Myo Lin.
In a statement issued on 9 June 2016, the umbrella forum of various Burmese media agencies, pointed out that the Myanmar based BBC reporter Nay Myo Lin unintentionally pushed a Burmese police officer in a commotion during a protest in Mandalay on 27 March last year.
Later the scribe was accused of violating a crime and charged with Section 332 of the Penal Code for assaulting a public servant and was given a three-month sentence with hard labour on 6 June by the Chanmyathazi township court of Mandalay.
“The majority of the journalists have been deeply saddened with such kind of harsh prison sentence against a reporter while the new government and media organizations have been striving with mutual understanding for press freedom in Burma,” said the BNI statement.
It also argued that it would be ‘more appropriate for officials from the judiciary department together with respective government to review reporter Ko Nay Lin’s case with the legal procedures of the News Media Law, which has been enacted in Burma, rather than the Penal Code’.
