Myanmar has sentenced seven soldiers to prison for their involvement in the massacre of 10 Rohingya men in the state of Rakhine last September, the army said on Tuesday.
The military of Myanmar has issued a statement that seven of its soldiers were “sentenced to 10 years with hard labour at a prison in a remote area” for “contributing and participating in murder”.
It further said that legal proceedings against the police personnel and civilians “involved in the crime” are still going on.
Myanmar had admitted earlier this year for the first time that its military soldiers were involved in commiting atrocities against Rohingya Muslims.
Due to the atrocities meted out to the Rohingya Muslims, about 7,00,000 of them had fled to neighbouring Bangladesh to escape the military launch of brutal crackdown on the ethnic minority in August last year.
As of now, two journalists from the Reuters news agency are facing trial for reporting the massacre that was carried out in the northern Rakhine village of Inn Din.
The Myanmar government announced that the charges which were leveled against the two journalists on Tuesday. The two are identified as Lone and Kyaw Soe will proceed.
Both the two journalists have been kept under detention since December, and they already face a term of 14 years in jail on charges of violating the country’s Official Secrets Act. The detentions have been denounced by rights groups and journalists organizations as an open attack on press freedom.
The murdered rohingya men were buried in a mass grave in last Septemeber after they were hacked to death or shot by Buddhist neighbours and soldiers. The Reuters news agency published the story on the murder in February.
Many a times, the Rohingya and rights groups have alleged the army of committing crimes against humanity and genocide. The army was put up under many allegations like committing murder, rape, arson and looting that was recently unleashed in response to Rohingya armed attacks on security forces.
The United Nations and the United States have termed the action as ethnic cleansing for which the Myanmar government had denied.
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