Detained Myanmar journalist Wa Lone speaks to reporters in July as he is escorted from a court hearing by police in Yangon. By Timothy McLaughlin May 4 at 9:16 AM YANGON, Myanmar — Myanmar police had two Reuters journalists behind bars, but they wanted more.
Cellebrite — which has since left the Myanmar market — was one of numerous technology companies that rushed into Myanmar as the country opened to greater foreign investment in recent years.But the case against the journalists laid bare the potential risks of making deals with governments that could use the foreign forensic and surveillance technology in hard-line crackdowns and prosecutions.
Later that month, Myanmar’s Supreme Court rejected an appeal by the two journalists, effectively ending their bids to overturn their sentences through the legal system.Last year, Cellebrite halted new sales in the country and stopped servicing equipment that was already sold, its Myanmar distributor said in an interview.
The police worked alongside the armed forces during its August 2017 crackdown on Rohingya Muslims in Rakhine state, according to U.N. investigators who say the minority group was targeted by security forces with “genocidal intent.” “They said that he was a technical expert, that he is well trained by Cellebrite, but his Cellebrite certificate was out of date,” said Than Zaw Aung, an attorney for the journalists.