Myanmar releases two journalists detained for flying drone over capital but two other reporters remain locked up

Foreign and local journalists jailed for flying a drone near Myanmar’s parliament were freed on Friday after spending two months in prison, in a case that spiked alarm over an increasingly dangerous climate for reporters in the country.

Lau Hon Meng from Singapore and Mok Choy Lin from Malaysia were on assignment for Turkish state broadcaster TRT when they were detained in late October along with Myanmar journalist Aung Naing Soe and driver Hla Tin. The crew was shooting a documentary in Myanmar’s capital Naypyidaw.

Expecting to receive a fine, they confessed to flying the drone but were instead sentenced to two months in jail under Myanmar’s aircraft act.

They were freed from a jail north of the capital on Friday after a court dropped additional charges that carried between three and five more years in prison.

“They were all released this morning at 7am from Yamethin prison,” lawyer Khin Maung Zaw said.

Aung Naing Soe, the local reporter who spent his 27th birthday behind bars, said he was grateful to be freed and hoped other detained journalists would soon be released.