two reuters journalists freed in myanmar both are pulitzer award winners

Two Reuters journalists held in Myanmar for more than 500 days for their coverage of the crackdown on Rohingya Muslims were freed from jail Tuesday, ending a prolonged detention that has tainted Myanmar and its Nobel laureate civilian leader, Aung San Suu Kyi. Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo both were Pulitzer award winners released as part of an annual amnesty has freed thousands of prisoners since last month. An additional 6,000 people were released Tuesday.Their release was immediately and widely celebrated across the world. Reuters editor in chief Stephen J. Adler said in a statement that the news agency is `enormously pleased` that the two have been freed.`Since their arrests 511 days ago, they have become symbols of the importance of press freedom around the world. We welcome their return,`Myanmar officials have no immediate reason for the release of the two journalists, who had exhausted all their legal options after Myanmar’s highest court rejected their appeal late last month.Suu Kyi — winner of the Nobel Peace Prize — has also been under significant pressure from Vice President Pence and others to intervene in the case and free the journalists. But she had defended their detention and said they were not jailed for their reporting but because they were convicted of breaking colonial-era state secrecy laws.

The two journalists were accused of possessing secret documents but were widely believed to have been set up in December 2017. In September they were convicted and sentenced to seven years in prison. The two journalists were lured into a meeting with police officers who handed over rolled-up documents. The pair were arrested shortly afterward by other officers.

The journalists and their lawyers have insisted that they were merely doing their job as reporters, never had the chance to read the documents before they were detained and had not been planning to share state secrets. The pair have received multiple honors and awards for their investigation into a massacre of 10 Rohingya Muslims, the story they were working on at the time of their arrest. These include the Pulitzer Prize for international reporting, which they won in April.Tuesday walking out of the gates of Yangon’s Insein prison, smiling and carrying a single bag each with their few possessions. They were mobbed by photographers and onlookers upon their exit.`I’m really happy and excited to see my family and my colleagues,` Wa Lone said in brief comments upon his release, thanking everyone around the world who helped secure his freedom. `I can’t wait to go to my newsroom.`The 33-year-old is a father of a baby girl who was born while he was jailed. Kyaw Soe Oo, 29, also has a young daughter. Their wives had repeatedly appealed to the Myanmar government to pardon their husbands.