Myanmar wields colonial-era law against Reuters journalists

December 18 : Myanmar has accused Reuters reporters Wa Lone, 31, and Kyaw Soe Oo, 27, of breaching the country’s Official Secrets Act, a little-used hangover from colonial rule.
Sam Zarifi, secretary-general of the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ), said the law can ensnare working journalists “at any time”.
The two reporters were arrested on Tuesday evening after they were invited to meet police officers for dinner in the north of Yangon.
The Ministry of Information said they had “illegally acquired information with the intention to share it with foreign media”, and published a photo of the pair in handcuffs standing behind a table with documents laid on it.
Origins of the official secrets Act
The law dates back to 1923, when Myanmar, then known as Burma, was a province of British India. At the time British administrators worried that rival powers could seek to exploit anti-colonial unrest in its South Asian empire.The Act, which amended earlier anti-spying legislation, was controversial in India even at the time, according to a history published in 2009 by the United Service Institution of India, a New Delhi-based think tank.
British military officers pushed for the stronger law over concerns about an “increase in Bolshevik activity”, along with geopolitical threats including “the possibility of racial war between Japan and the USA affecting India”, the history said.