The Manila Times

Japanese filmmaker gets 10 years in jail

YANGON, Myanmar: Myanmar’s junta has jailed a Japanese filmmaker for 10 years, more than two months after he was arrested while filming an anti-coup protest, a military spokesman said on Thursday.

The military has clamped down on press freedoms since its Feb. 1, 2021 coup, arresting reporters and photographers, as well as revoking broadcasting licenses while the Southeast Asian country plunged into chaos.

Toru Kubota, 26, was detained near an anti-government rally in the commercial hub and former capital Yangon in July along with two Myanmar citizens.

Kubota was sentenced on Wednesday to seven years in jail for breaching a law that criminalizes spreading information detrimental to state security and peace and tranquility, a junta spokesman said in a statement.

It added that he also received a three-year sentence for encouraging dissent against the military — a charge that has been widely used in the crackdown.

The sentences would be served concurrently, according to the statement.

A diplomat at Japan’s embassy in Myanmar said Kubota also faced a charge of breaching immigration law, with the next hearing expected on October 12.

Japan’s Foreign Ministry said it had been providing consular support and would “continue to appeal to the Myanmar authorities for the early release of Mr. Kubota.”

The filmmaker had arrived in the country in July and was filming a “documentary featuring a Myanmar person,” his friend Yoshitaka Nitta told a news conference in Tokyo in August.

According to a profile on the FilmFreeway website, Kubota has made documentaries on Myanmar’s Muslim Rohingya minority and “refugees and ethnic issues in Myanmar.”

Japan is a top donor to Myanmar and has longstanding relations with the country’s military.

After the coup, Tokyo announced it would halt all new aid, though it stopped short of imposing individual sanctions on military and police commanders.

Kubota’s jailing is a “slap in the face” for Tokyo, Phil Robertson of Human Rights Watch said.

“It’s time for Japan to stop playing games and move to support real international sanctions that will squeeze the junta’s revenue sources,” he said.

In September, Japan’s Defense Ministry said it would halt a training program for members of Myanmar’s military from next year in response to the junta’s execution in late July of four political prisoners, including a former lawmaker from ousted leader Aung Sang Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy party.

The execution, which came despite international calls for clemency, was Myanmar’s first use of capital punishment in decades and sparked global outrage.

Kubota is the fifth foreign journalist to be detained in Myanmar, after United States citizens Nathan Maung and Danny Fenster, Robert Bociaga of Poland and Yuki Kitazumi of Japan. All four were later freed and deported.

Fenster, who was held in May last year as he attempted to leave the country, faced a closed-door trial inside Insein on charges of unlawful association, incitement against the military and breaching visa rules.

He was sentenced to 11 years in prison before being pardoned and deported.

As of last March, 48 journalists remain in custody across the country, according to the monitoring group Reporting Asean.

The military’s crackdown on dissent since it ousted Suu Kyi’s elected government has left more than 2,300 civilians dead, according to a local monitoring group.

The junta says blames anti-coup fighters for the deaths of almost 3,900 civilians.

Asia And Oceania

en-ph

2022-10-07T07:00:00.0000000Z

2022-10-07T07:00:00.0000000Z

https://digitaledition.manilatimes.net/article/281956021677986

The Manila Times