Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi said jailed Reuters journalists can appeal their sentences

AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein

Myanmar's de-facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

• Myanmar government leader Aung San Suu Kyi on Thursday said two jailed Reuters journalists can appeal their seven-year sentences, and that their jailing had nothing to do with freedom of expression.
• Punishment for the two journalists sparked worldwide criticism. They had been reporting on Myanmar's crackdown on Rohingya Muslims when they were arrested last year.
• Suu Kyi also added that in hindsight, her handling of the Rohingya crisis could have been dealt with "better."
• Some 700,000 Rohingya Muslims have fled the country's Rakhine state after government troops waged a brutal crackdown following attacks on Myanmar military and police posts.

Myanmar government leader Aung San Suu Kyi on Thursday said two jailed Reuters journalists can appeal their seven-year sentences, and that their jailing had nothing to do with freedom of expression.

"I wonder whether very many people have actually read the summary of the judgment which had nothing to do with freedom of expression at all, it had to do with an Official Secrets Act," Suu Kyi said at the World Economic Forum on ASEAN in Hanoi in response to a question from the forum moderator.

"If we believe in the rule of law, they have every right to appeal the judgment and to point out why the judgment was wrong."

Punishment for the two journalists sparked worldwide criticism. They had been reporting on Myanmar's crackdown on Rohingya Muslims when they were arrested last year.

Suu Kyi added that in hindsight, her handling of the Rohingya crisis could have been dealt with "better."

"There are of course ways in which, with hindsight, the situation could've been handled better," she said, in reference to the 700,000 Rohingya Muslims that fled the country's Rakhine state after government troops waged a brutal crackdown following attacks on Myanmar military and police posts.

"But we believe that in order to have long-term security and stability we have to be fair to all sides. We can't choose who should be protected by rule of law," she said