Friday, December 14, 2018

The Irrawaddy Magazine

The Irrawaddy Magazine

Traveling Exhibition on ‘Upcycling’ Reaches Yangon

Posted: 14 Dec 2018 06:01 AM PST

YANGON—A traveling exhibition promoting the virtues of "upcycling" is making a two-week stop in Yangon.

As opposed to recycling, which takes paper, plastic, glass and other material and breaks them down into components from which to make new—often low-quality or similarly disposable—consumer products, upcycling takes discarded items and attempts to fashion them into something enduringly useful or beautiful.

Aiming to raise ecological awareness, the local version of the exhibition, "Pure Gold Myanmar", showcases a collection of upcycled objects created by international and Myanmar designers.

The exhibition opens Saturday at the iconic Secretariat Yangon.

"The major purpose is…to raise this ecological awareness. At the same time, I want to give a platform to local artists and for the local NGOs who are dealing with this topic—upcycling, [or] transforming waste into something valuable and beautiful," said Franz Xaver Augustin, the organizer of the exhibition and director of Goethe Institut Myanmar.

The exhibit features 76 upcycled objects by 53 designers from all over the world, alongside works by Myanmar artists, artisans and designers.

"Upcycling finds a natural home in Myanmar, where many people are already transforming trash into useful, beautiful objects. We've seen a children's playground built entirely out of old tires, deco-lamps from beer bottles, shopping baskets from candy wrappers, and many more remarkable creations that show the ingenuity of the local people," said lead curator Volker Albus at a press event on Friday.

What sets this exhibit apart is that the designers' objects are all made from items that would ordinarily be thrown away.

"Upcycling is different from recycling. Upcycling means transforming waste. Things we can recycle—objects of glass, plastic, paper, etc.—[are transformed] into [something] more precious, which is beautiful and functional at the same time," Augustin said.

Brought to Myanmar from Germany by the Goethe Institut, the exhibition is a major undertaking featuring 76 pieces, which were transported on a container ship. Yangon is the fourth city to host the exhibition following Hamburg, London and Bangkok.

One of the upcycled objects on display at the iconic Secretariat Yangon / Htein Lin

"I have the impression that people are quite aware of the problem of garbage, too much garbage. Consumerism has reached [Myanmar] in the past five, six years," Augustin said.

"Supermarkets are full of things and goods, usually packed in plastic or in glass," he said, adding that the event's organizers aim to "create awareness about the problem of garbage … that will be thrown away. That is one intention of this exhibition."

From decorative sculptures made out of discarded industrial materials to a shelf made of old water heaters, "Pure Gold" showcases the diverse culture and creativity of designers using everyday waste products.

"The objects exhibited at this exhibition are on the way between art and design. Some things are pure art, some things are pure design, and useable objects which could be used anywhere," Augustin said.

Well-known Myanmar artists Ko Htein Lin and Arker Kyaw will join the exhibition, supported by local colleagues Yadanar Win, Aung Myat Htay, Zun Ei, Ma Ei, Ko Latt, Ko Ye, Nge Nge, Kaung Myat Thu, Thiri Wai Maung, Pau San, Sen Sen, Suan Huai, Aye Lwin, Nang Hseng Noon and Sai Puen Kur.

"When I first saw the exhibits, all I can say is, it's so awesome. Every piece is useful and beautiful," said Arker Kyaw.

Arker Kyaw created one of the highlights of "Pure Gold Myanmar," a giant "nagar" installation made of bamboo sticks, reused rice sacks and plastic sheeting.

"In our Myanmar folklore, the nagar is a snake- or dragon-like being with super powers. With this public art, we want to capture the imagination of the people and inspire them to upcycle rubbish," he said.

Upcycling workshops will be held on Dec. 16-19 under the guidance of Prof. Axel Kufus from the Berlin University of the Arts, with support from the artisans and designers of Chu Chu and Hla Day.

The exhibition will held daily from Dec. 15 to Jan. 6, from 10:30 a.m. to 4.30 p.m. daily. The exhibition is open to the public, free-of-charge.

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Army Captain Accused of Killing Man over Missing ID Card Goes on Trial

Posted: 14 Dec 2018 03:53 AM PST

The wife of a man allegedly killed by a Myanmar Army officer seven months ago came face to face with the suspect for the first time in a court in Moulmein, the capital of Mon State, on Dec. 10.

Tin Soe Myint was allegedly killed by Captain Aung Ko Min of Light Infantry Battalion 587 based in Ye Township.

The victim's wife, 36-year-old mother of three Khin Swe Tit, said she wanted to fight for justice for her husband, but could not afford to hire her own lawyer. She had been told she would be provided a government-appointed lawyer but had yet to meet the person, she said.

Khin Swe Tit told The Irrawaddy on Friday she had tried hard to bring the case to a civilian court, even writing letters to the Union president and the Myanmar Human Rights Commission.

She said she initially wanted to summon village authorities allegedly involved in the crime, but they are serving as defense witnesses.

"They [some village authorities] were involved in helping the captain kill my husband. I am worried about how I can win this case, as they act as witnesses for him," Khin Swe Tit said.

She runs a small shop selling gasoline in Thanbyuzayat town, Mon State, to support her two children's education. She earns 4,000 to 6,000 kyats a day. Her youngest is 4 years old, and she is not sure if she can afford to send the child to school, she said.

She said her family lives mostly in Kalegauk Island, Ye Township, but sometimes in Thanbyuzayat Township. Residents of the island are sometimes asked to show ID cards to Myanmar Army personnel, according to the woman.

On May 16, her husband was stopped by Army personnel and asked for his ID card, but he had left it at their home in Thanbyuzayat. So, according to Khin Swe Tit, Captain Aung Ko Min arrested and later tortured and killed him.

At the time of his arrest, Tin Soe Myint was accompanied by his father-in-law, Nai Chan Aye. He is serving as a witness on behalf of Khin Swe Tit. When Capt. Aung Ko Min took the victim to the Army base, he ordered Nai Chan Aye to go home.

Nai Chan Aye told Moulmein-based Mon News Agency that he eventually returned to the Army base where he planned to present a letter from the village head to prove the victim was indeed a resident. However, the victim was already dead, and his body had numerous bullet wounds, including on his legs. By this time, the captain himself had been detained by two senior Army officers and handcuffed to a piece of furniture, said Nai Chan Aye.

Khin Swe Tit said her husband did not know the captain, and had never had any personal problems with him. The captain killed her husband over a missing ID card, she said.

The next court hearing will be on Dec. 18 in Moulmein. The court will hear from the defense first.

"I want to see justice for my husband. [The suspect] is charged with murder. I want him to go to prison," she said.

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Tatmadaw Forcing Boat Owners to Transport Troops in Buthidaung

Posted: 13 Dec 2018 11:55 PM PST

YANGON—The Myanmar Amy reportedly forced local boat owners to transport troops to the conflict zone in northern Rakhine State's Buthidaung Township, where civilians have been caught in the crossfire in recent clashes with the Arakan Army (AA).

Government soldiers were ambushed by AA guerillas while traveling in five boats from Myo Ma Chaung village to a location on the upper Sai Din River in Buthidaung Township. The area is a popular destination among locals visiting the Sai Din waterfall. Some residents of neighboring Kyar Nyo Pyin village told The Irrawaddy over the phone that a high-ranking officer commandeered five vessels, three owned by Muslims and two belonging to Arakanese.

Arakanese boat driver Aung Kyaw Tun was shot in the hand. Farmer U Thein Maung from Lay Myo village, who spends most of his time farming and working on a plantation near the Sai Din River, said the fighting occurred near his hut. He said 50 soldiers were patrolling the Sai Din River in the five boats. He saw at least three or four soldiers being carried by Myanmar Army (or Tatmadaw) troops, but it was unclear whether they had been killed. The wounded boat driver has been receiving medical treatment since early this week.

"I have never seen this kind of fighting before," U Thein Maung said. "The artillery explosions were very loud; I just lay on the floor of my hut."

The clash occurred a few miles from Buthidaung Township's Military Operation Command (15) based in Da Pyu Chaung. The Army announced last week that some high-ranking officers and soldiers had been killed in recent clashes with the AA in Buthidaung Township without elaborating.

Adul Wahid, a Muslim resident of Buthidaung's Du Oe Thei Ma village, said Muslim boat owners were forced to transport military personnel to the battlefield. Unconfirmed reports spread among Muslim residents that a military commander had been killed in the fighting with the AA on Monday. Since then, according to the reports, an Army artillery unit had been randomly firing into the mountains.

"As the skirmishes happened in the mountains, villagers were ordered to stay away from the forest," Adul Wahid said.

While the armed clashes broke out near ethnic Rakhine villages, some of the Rohingya villages in the area that were spared during the military's 2017 clearance operations are now frightened of further attacks, Adul Wahid said. Border police and Army troops ordered the Muslim villagers not to visit neighboring Arakanese villages for any reason for a period of time. A curfew has been imposed banning locals from going out at night and gathering.

Army troops and AA rebels fought again the next day near Kan Pyin village, and more than 200 villagers fled to neighboring Say Taung village as shells exploded nearby. U Maung Kyaw Khine from Say Taung told The Irrawaddy over the phone that more than 200 villagers took shelter at Say Taung monastery, but had left by Thursday after being ordered to go home by border police.

Based in Kachin State's Laiza, the AA in early 2015 entered Rakhine State and since established a secure foothold in areas on Myanmar's western border. The AA and two allied non-signatories to the Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement, the Ta'ang Nationalities Liberation Army and the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army announced after meeting with members of the government's Peace Commission on Wednesday in China's Yunnan Province that they are willing to stop fighting the military and re-enter peace talks led by State Counselor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi.

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US Labels Crimes Committed Against Rohingya ‘Genocide’

Posted: 13 Dec 2018 11:31 PM PST

YANGON—The US House of Representatives declared crimes committed against the Rohingya Muslim minority as genocide on Wednesday, in a resolution which received an overwhelming bipartisan vote of 394 to one.

This comes just months after the US State Department in September released a report documenting widespread acts of violence against the Rohingya in northern Rakhine State in western Myanmar which stopped short of labeling the atrocities as genocide.

"With this resolution, the House will take the important step of naming the atrocities committed against the Rohingya people in Burma what they are: genocide," said Chairman Ed Royce to the House earlier this week.

More than 700,000 Rohingya people fled Rakhine to neighboring Bangladesh last year amid clearance operations by government security forces following Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army's (ARSA's) serial attacks on police outposts. The Myanmar government has denounced ARSA as a terrorist organization. Those who made it to refugee camps in Cox's Bazaar, Bangladesh accused the security forces of rape, arbitrary killings and arson.

Ed Royce told the Voice of America about the importance of this resolution and the need to hold Burmese military and security leaders accountable for their atrocities.

"We want to send the message with one voice to those who are involved in this that 'you will be held accountable.' And we want to put things in motion so that the international community understands the gravity of it," he said.

A UN fact-finding mission in August said Myanmar's military carried out mass killings and gang rapes of Rohingya with "genocidal intent" and the military chief and five generals should be prosecuted for orchestrating the gravest crimes under law.

International human rights organizations, including Amnesty International, also called for the referral of the generals to the International Criminal Court.

The Myanmar military has denied all accusations, saying their troops followed the rules of engagement.

The Myanmar government has set up an independent commission led by international experts to investigate whether human rights abuses were committed as accused. The commission on Wednesday made a public request for evidence of atrocities to be submitted to them.

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Plans to Accept $79M French Loan Shelved

Posted: 13 Dec 2018 11:21 PM PST

NAYPYITAW—The Union Parliament on Thursday voted down the government's proposal to receive loans worth 70 million euros ($79.3 million) from the French Development Agency (AFD).

Just 34 votes were in favor of the proposal and 497 against, with six abstentions despite the deputy minister for planning and finance attempting to convince lawmakers that the project would ultimately benefit Yangon residents and saying that the government has already spent almost two years preparing the project.

The loans, according to the Yangon Region government, was to be used to upgrade parks and markets, build car parking facilities, develop riverfront areas, conserve cultural heritage sites and dredge the Nga Moe Yeik Creek, an undeveloped waterway in Yangon that the regional government believes could be used for public transport.

With the interest rate being low and the country getting 32 years before having to repay the debt, the loan seems to be attractive, but lawmakers have opposed the proposal because the Yangon regional government could not clarify details of how funds from the loan would be used, said Lower House lawmaker Daw Khin San Hlaing.

Lawmakers have complained that the Yangon regional government failed to provide in its proposal details about the breakdown of the budget and timeframe to be applied to each project, or their advantages.

"We need to be very careful about loans. We already have been bearing the heavy burden of debt. Some of the projects were successful, but many projects barely had an impact in spite of large sums of money spent on them," said Daw Khin San Hlaing.

"We turned it down because [the Yangon regional government] could not present the precise data and information requested by the Parliament," said another lawmaker Daw Yin Min Hlaing.

Lawmakers were critical of the five-year project (2019-2023) since the deputy minister for planning and finance gave details about what was to be called the Transport, Waterways and Urban Heritage Project in November.

Yangon Region lawmaker U Khin Maung Maung of the ruling National League for Democracy then complained that Yangon doesn't even have enough street lights and that roads are potholed and become flooded when the rains come due to a failing drainage system.

As a result, the plan was shelved. Later, the Yangon Region government discussed the plans with the Joint Public Accounts Committee of the Union Parliament, which also endorsed the suspension.

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Myanmar’s Economy to Slow 0.6 Percent, World Bank Says

Posted: 13 Dec 2018 10:36 PM PST

YANGON — Myanmar's economic growth is expected to slow from 6.8 percent in 2017-18 to 6.2 percent in 2018-19 and face potential risks to recovery, according to the World Bank's latest country report, released Thursday.

Growth is projected to recover to 6.6 percent by 2020-21, “helped by recent policy changes such as the adoption of the Myanmar Sustainable Development Plan, liberalization of wholesale and retail trade, implementation of the Myanmar Companies Law and large investments in infrastructure projects including those related to the Belt and Road Initiative,” the bank said.

But it warned that it foresaw risks from intensifying impacts of the Rakhine crisis, domestic macroeconomic imbalances and the possible repeal of the Generalized Scheme of Preferences by the European Union and a possible slowdown in global growth.

The World Bank said that from April through October macroeconomic volatility intensified in Myanmar. The kyat depreciated significantly — by 18 percent against the U.S. dollar — having an impact on inflation, which, the report said, “is expected to climb from 5.5 percent in 2017-18 to 8.8 percent in 2018-19, driven by exchange rate pass-through and rising food prices.”

According to the World Bank, “depreciation was triggered by global factors such as the possibility of faster-than-anticipated monetary policy normalization in the US. The depreciation was accelerated by Myanmar specific factors such as the continued reliance on FDI [Foreign Direct Investment] flows for financing the current account deficit and a thin foreign exchange market that means that few and relatively small transactions can significantly move the exchange rate.”

It said industrial growth was also “expected to moderate to 8.2 percent in 2018-19 from 9.4 percent in 2017-18, on the back of softening consumption, slowing investment including FDI, and rising production cost pressure from fuel price increases and the depreciation of the kyat.”

“Services sector growth is expected to moderate to 7.6 percent in 2018-19 from 8.3 percent in 2017-18. A slowdown in the tourism and transport sectors is offsetting continued robust growth in telecommunications services and wholesale and retail trade. Despite seasonal floods and landslides, agriculture output is projected to grow at 1.2 percent in 2018-19 with strong external demand driving up paddy prices.”

According to the World Bank, Myanmar’s “current account deficit has improved, supported by rising garment exports but also a slowdown in growth of imports. The current account deficit declined from 5.5 percent of GDP (US$ 3.5 billion) in 2016-17 to 2.6 percent of GDP (US$ 1.7 billion) in 2017-18 and is projected to narrow further in 2018-19. The trade deficit narrowed from 8.5 percent of GDP in 2016-17 to 5.7 percent of GDP in 2017-18, driven by rapid increase in exports from 16.8 percent of GDP to 20.2 percent of GDP, driven by rapid growth of garment exports.

“Imports increased marginally in the same period, with investment goods imports declining by 6 percent in 2017-18 due to declining industrial investment and moderation in construction activity, while the value of imports of petroleum products increased by 43 percent in 2017-18 due to higher fuel prices. Lower profit repatriation and higher (recorded) workers' remittances also helped narrow the current account deficit.”

The World Bank said “new FDI commitments declined by 14 percent in 2017-18 compared to 2016-17, and by over 50 percent in the first half of 2018-19 as compared to the same period in 2017-18.” However, it added that it was too early to conclude that FDI commitments were in sustained decline.

“Investors and observers believe that the recent slowdown in commitments may reflect uncertainty in the investment climate related to the Rakhine crisis and weak reform momentum,” the report said.

However, the World Bank also predicted a medium-term macroeconomic recovery by 2020-21 “driven by an expected pickup in foreign and domestic investment responding to recent policy measures such as the opening of retail and wholesale sectors, services sector liberalization, loosening restrictions on foreign bank lending and continued implementation of the Companies Act.

“Construction activity is also expected to accelerate in response to a pickup in Belt and Road Initiative-related project activities.”

A recent survey by the European Chamber of Commerce in Myanmar found that 81 percent of responding firms had lost confidence in the government's management of the economy.

According to World Bank's latest ease of doing business index, Myanmar showed no improvement in its overall ranking, retaining the No. 171 spot it held last year and remaining the least favorable ASEAN member country in which to conduct business.

According to a second-quarter 2018 survey by the Union of Myanmar Federation of Chambers of Commerce and Industry, most of the businesses that responded said they were performing significantly worse than the year before. It also found that business confidence had dropped 25 percent over the past year.

The survey listed 10 main factors in the decline: higher taxation and tariffs; restrictions on financing and banking; depreciation of the kyat; unstable economic rules and regulations; lack of market demand; delays in import and export procedures; increases in local costs and inflation; foreign competition; a lack of skilled human resources; and poor infrastructure.

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China Says Second Canadian Being Probed For Harming State Security

Posted: 13 Dec 2018 08:48 PM PST

BEIJING — Canadian businessman Michael Spavor, who worked with North Korea, is being investigated on suspicion of harming China’s security, China said on Thursday, days after a former Canadian diplomat was detained in an escalating diplomatic row.

The state security bureau in the northeastern Chinese city of Dandong, which borders North Korea, has been investigating Spavor since Dec. 10, an official news site for the Liaoning Province government said.

It gave no further details.

The announcement follows the detention in Beijing on Monday of former diplomat Michael Kovrig, who works for the International Crisis Group (ICG).

State media in China has reported Kovrig is being investigated on the same charges.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang, asked about Spavor’s detention, said both he and Kovrig were suspected of harming national security, reiterating state media announcements.

“The legal rights and interests of these two Canadians have been safeguarded,” Lu told a daily news briefing. “These two cases are in the process of being investigated separately.”

The Canadian Embassy has been notified of the detentions, he added, declining to provide further details of the investigations.

Lu said he had not heard of any other cases of Canadians being investigated.

China has reacted angrily to Canada’s arrest on Dec. 1 of Chinese executive Meng Wanzhou, the chief financial officer of Huawei Technologies, and Spavor’s investigation is likely to escalate the diplomatic row.

Meng’s arrest was made at Washington’s request. She has been accused by U.S. prosecutors of misleading banks about transactions linked to Iran, putting the banks at risk of violating sanctions.

Officials say China had not tied Kovrig’s detention to Meng’s arrest, though Canadian diplomatic experts have said they have no doubt the two cases are linked.

Asked if Meng’s release would see the two Canadians released, Lu reiterated that Meng’s arrest was mistaken action and Canada should immediately let her go.

He said authorities had taken measures “according to the law” in the Canadians’ cases, and China welcomed foreign visitors, and they had nothing to fear so long as they obeyed the law.

Hu Xijin, editor of the state-backed Global Times, a nationalistic tabloid, said on the Weibo social media platform the Chinese government would never concede that the Canadians’ detentions were related to Meng’s case.

“But the use of a complete set of laws to prove the rationale for arrest is one and the same as what the U.S. and Canada did to Meng Wanzhou,” he wrote.

Canada has been unable to contact Spavor since he notified the government that he was being questioned by Chinese authorities, Foreign Ministry spokesman Guillaume Bérubé said in statement issued in Canada.

Canadian officials were working hard to ascertain Spavor’s whereabouts and would continue to raise the issue with the Chinese government, Bérubé said.

Phone calls, messages and emails to Spavor went unanswered.

North Korea links

Friends of Spavor told Reuters he was due to fly out of Dalian, in Liaoning Province, on a Korean Air flight to South Korea at 2:05 p.m. on Monday but had not arrived.

Kovrig and Spavor were acquainted, according to people who know them, although there has been no official indication from China that their cases are linked or are related to North Korea.

Kovrig had carried out research on China’s diplomatic ties to North Korea in his work on security issues for the ICG, a think-tank focusing on conflict resolution.

Spavor, who is based in Dandong, is the head of Paektu Cultural Exchange, a China- and UK-based non-profit social enterprise.

The group says on its website it is “dedicated to facilitating sustainable cooperation, cross-cultural exchanges, activities, trade, and investment” with North Korea.

It also says it maintains an “array of contacts” within North Korea and is “nonpolitical.”

Spavor has acted as a translator and facilitator for former U.S. National Basketball Association star Dennis Rodman on trips to North Korea and shared Long Island Iced Teas with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on board one of his private boats after they went jet-skiing in 2013.

More recently, he has been trying to facilitate investment in North Korea in anticipation of sanctions being lifted, often hosting both North Korean officials and potential investors at his office in Dandong, as well as on trips inside North Korea, Spavor told Reuters in earlier interviews.

A U.S.-based friend of his told Reuters that Spavor was involved in a few projects in North Korea, including sporting exchanges and trying to broker investment, though given U.N. sanctions that was a challenge.

“It was as far as I know pretty anodyne stuff,” the friend said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

“He is a very gregarious, affable guy and Korea watchers know him and like him. North Koreans seem to like him a lot too. I’m not sure what he could have done to get in this sort of situation.”

China’s Foreign Ministry suggested on Wednesday that Kovrig might have broken laws on non-governmental organizations if he was conducting work in China for the ICG, which is not registered.

Reuters could not find a registration for Spavor’s group on government databases for NGOs or social enterprises.

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U.S. House Calls on Myanmar to Release Reuters Journalists

Posted: 13 Dec 2018 08:15 PM PST

WASHINGTON — The U.S. House of Representatives called nearly unanimously on Thursday for the government of Myanmar to release Reuters journalists Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo, who were imprisoned one year ago in a landmark free speech case.

House members voted by 394 to 1 for a resolution calling for the release of Wa Lone, 32, and Kyaw Soe Oo, 28, who were found guilty in September of violating Myanmar’s Official Secrets Act and sentenced to seven years in prison. The case has raised questions among a number of political leaders in the United States and Europe, human rights advocates and the United Nations about Myanmar’s progress towards democracy.

The measure is non-binding, but intended as a strong message to the government of Myanmar, also known as Burma, as well as to President Donald Trump’s administration that members of the U.S. Congress want the two men released.

The resolution also calls the Myanmar military’s campaign against the country’s Rohingya Muslim minority a genocide. In a report issued on Aug. 27, U.N. investigators said Myanmar's military carried out mass killings and gang rapes of Rohingya with “genocidal intent” and for the first time explicitly called for Myanmar officials to face genocide charges over their campaign.

The U.S. Department of State, which would make an official determination, has not made that official designation using the term genocide.

The Myanmar Embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the House of Representatives vote.

The military in Myanmar, where Buddhism is the main religion, has denied past accusations that it had committed genocide against the Rohingya and says its actions were part of a fight against terrorism.

The one “no” vote came from Representative Andy Biggs, a Republican from Arizona. Asked to comment on Biggs' vote, Daniel Stefanski, a spokesman for the congressman, did not directly address the question but said the Myanmar military's “continuing oppression of the Rohingya is inhumane” and called on the Trump administration “to use maximum diplomatic pressure to end the genocide and demand the release of the two journalists.”

The reporters, who pleaded not guilty, said they were handed papers by police shortly before they were detained, and a police witness testified that they had been set up. They had been investigating the killing of 10 Rohingya men and boys as part of a military response to insurgent attacks.

Lawyers for the two Reuters reporters have lodged an appeal against their conviction and sentence. An appeal hearing is scheduled for Dec. 24.

Among other things, the House resolution also condemns attacks against civilians by the Burmese military and calls on Trump to impose additional sanctions on senior members of the Burmese military and security forces it says are responsible for human rights abuses.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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Number of Journalists Jailed For Doing Job Near Record High: Report

Posted: 13 Dec 2018 08:07 PM PST

NEW YORK — A near-record number of journalists around the world are behind bars for their work, including two Reuters reporters whose imprisonment in Myanmar has drawn international criticism, according to a report released on Thursday.

There were 251 journalists jailed for doing their jobs as of Dec. 1, the Committee to Protect Journalists said in an annual study. For the third consecutive year, more than half are in Turkey, China and Egypt, where authorities have accused reporters of anti-governmental activities.

“It looks like a trend now,” the report’s author, Elana Beiser, said in an interview. “It looks like the new normal.”

The number of journalists imprisoned on charges of “false news” rose to 28, up from 21 last year and nine in 2016, according to the CPJ, a U.S.-based nonprofit that promotes press freedom.

The report criticized U.S. President Donald Trump for frequently characterizing negative media coverage as “fake news,” a phrase that is also used by leaders against their critics in countries like the Philippines and Turkey.

The study was published the same week that Time magazine named several journalists as its annual “Person of the Year.”

That group included Reuters reporters Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo, who were imprisoned one year ago on Wednesday, and Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who was killed at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul two months ago.

Wa Lone, 32, and Kyaw Soe Oo, 28, were found guilty in September of violating Myanmar’s Official Secrets Act and sentenced to seven years in prison. They had been investigating the massacre of 10 Rohingya Muslim men and boys amid an army crackdown that has driven hundreds of thousands of refugees into Bangladesh.

Lawyers for the two Reuters reporters have lodged an appeal against their conviction and sentence.

Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi has said the jailing of the reporters had nothing to do with freedom of expression. In comments made the week after their conviction, she said they were sentenced for handling official secrets and “were not jailed because they were journalists.”

Turkey remains the world’s worst offender against press freedom, the CPJ said, with at least 68 journalists imprisoned for anti-state charges. At least 25 journalists are in prison in Egypt.

Turkey has previously said its crackdown is justified because of an attempted coup to overthrow the government in 2016. Egypt has said its actions to limit dissent are directed at militants trying to undermine the state, which saw a popular uprising in 2011 topple the county’s longtime leader Hosni Mubarak.

Asked about journalists being jailed, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said: “Legal measures are not taken because of these suspects’ or criminals’ professions. This is unrelated.”

The overall number of jailed journalists is down 8 percent from last year’s record high of 272, the CPJ said.

The total does not take into account journalists who have disappeared or are being held by non-state actors. The CPJ said there are dozens of reporters missing or kidnapped in the Middle East and North Africa, including several held by Houthi rebels in Yemen.

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