YANGON: The Japanese journalist jailed in Myanmar continues to be charged with breaking immigration law and encouraging dissent contrary to the military, the zirkel said on Thurs (Aug 4).
Myanmar’s military has clamped upon press freedoms given that its coup last year, arresting reporters plus photographers, as well as revoking broadcasting licences as the country plunged in to chaos.
Toru Kubota, who was held while covering a demonstration in Yangon last week , “has already been charged under area 505 (a) plus under immigration legislation 13-1”, the junta said in a statement.
505 (a) – a regulation that criminalises motivating dissent against the military and carries an optimum three-year jail term – has been widely used in the crackdown on dissent.
Breaching immigration law 13-1 carries a maximum of five years in prison.
Filmmaker Kubota, 26, was held near an anti-government rally in Yangon along with two Myanmar citizens.
After the charges were filed, he was transferred from police custody to Yangon’s Insein prison, a security resource told AFP, requesting anonymity.
“He’s in good health and embassy officials have got visited him already at the police place where he has been jailed, ” a security resource told AFP.
According to an user profile on FilmFreeway, he’s previously made documentaries on Myanmar’s Muslim Rohingya minority and “refugees and ethnic issues in Myanmar”.
He is the fifth foreign reporter detained in Myanmar after United States people Nathan Maung and Danny Fenster , Robert Bociaga of Poland and Yuki Kitazumi of Japan, who were all eventually freed and deported.