Rights Groups: Guerrilla Groups and Associations Act

rights groups: The three were detained Monday as they were returning from observing the ceremony held in northern Shan state by the Ta'ang National Liberation Army an officially illegal organization which is among several guerrilla groups fighting the Myanmar government, according to Metro News. Toe Zaw Lat, a senior journalist at the Democratic Voice of Burma, said two of his reporters, Aye Naing and Pyae Bone Naing, along with Lawi Weng of The Irrawaddy online news service have been officially charged under Unlawful Associations Act and have been jailed in the northeastern town of Hsipaw, where they will be brought before a court on July 11. Rights groups and journalists are protesting the men's detention and the application of the law. The law has been applied before to sympathizers and members of rebel groups, and also to some aid workers, but rarely, if ever, to journalists. Using the archaic Unlawful Associations Act to incarcerate journalists is an affront to democracy in Myanmar. The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists said the detained men should be immediately freed and allowed to carry on with their work as journalists. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.