Myanmar sentences Japanese journalist to prison for 10 years

Gulf Today Report

A court in military-ruled Myanmar has sentenced a Japanese journalist to prison after he filmed an anti-government protest in July, a Japanese diplomat and the Southeast Asian nation's government said on Thursday.

The military has clamped down on press freedoms since its coup last year, arresting reporters and photographers as well as revoking broadcasting licences as the country plunged into chaos.

Toru Kubota was sentenced by the court in Yangon's Insein prison on Wednesday, a diplomat at Japan's embassy in Myanmar said, adding that the filmmaker's trial for allegedly violating immigration law was "still continuing".

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Toru Kubota was sentenced on Wednesday to seven years for violating the electronic transactions law and three years for incitement, said Tetsuo Kitada, deputy chief of mission of the Japanese Embassy. The sentences were to be served concurrently.

A statement sent to journalists from the military's information office explained that Kubota was sentenced to seven years in total, while a trial continues on the charge of violating immigration law against him.

Kubota, 26, was detained near an anti-government rally in Yangon in July along with two Myanmar citizens.

The court sentenced Kubota to "seven years imprisonment" for breaching an electronic communications law, and three years for encouraging dissent, the source said.

The dissent charge carries a maximum three-year jail term and has been widely used in the crackdown on opposition to the coup.

The next hearing for the immigration charge would take place next Wednesday, the source added.