Mizzima News

New Delhi: A local woman journalist, attached to weekly 'Ecovision Journal' was sentenced to two years in jail by a court in Rangoon's Tamwe Township on Friday.

The sentence handed out to reporter Ein Khaing Oo, barely 24-years-old, during a close-door trial without being allowed a defence lawyer, comes after several detained activists were sent to long terms in prison of up to 65 years earlier this week.

"The sentence was read out this afternoon. She was not permitted a defence lawyer. The judge read out the sentence. Her family members could learn the sentence when she was taken back to the prison.

She was accused by the police of taking photographs of Nargis victims so that she could sell it to the foreign media.

The reporter has spent five months in Insein prison. She was arrested while filing stories on the Nargis Cyclone victims who were approaching Rangoon-based international NGOs for help on July 10.ho

Kyaw Kyaw Than, a friend who followed her was also arrested and sentenced to 7 years in prison. The regime accused him of instigating public riots and travelling abroad illegally.

Ein Khaing Oo was working in Ecovision for two months before she was arrested.

Cyclone Nargis lashed the poverty stricken country on May 2 and 3 in which at least 130,000 people were killed or went missing.

Today, the military government sentenced at least 15 dissidents.