A Myanmar court has accepted charges against two Reuters journalists under the Official Secrets Acts, according to their lawyer.
Reporters Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo were arrested in Yangon on December 12 for allegedly possessing documents on the military crackdown that has seen more than 655,000 minority Rohingya Muslims flee Rakhine State.
"They were charged with the Official Secrets Act section 13c," lawyer Khin Maung Zaw told reporters outside the court. "The maximum sentence for the offence is 14 years in prison."
The act dates back to 1923, when Myanmar, then known as Burma, was a province of British India.
Section 3 covers entering prohibited places, taking images or handling secret official documents that "might be or is intended to be, directly or indirectly, useful to an enemy".
News that makes sense
Your trusted source for staying up-to-date with the world around you. Get free daily news updates and analysis, straight to your inbox.
The Ministry of Information had previously cited police as saying the reporters were "arrested for possessing important and secret government documents related to Rakhine State and security forces".
The ministry has said they "illegally acquired information with the intention to share it with foreign media".
The lawyers had applied for bail, Zaw said, which would be considered by the judge at the next hearing on January 23.
Observers from the United Nations and from several embassies, including the Netherlands, Australia and Britain, were at the court along with relatives of the two journalists.
Local journalists wearing black waited outside the court on Wednesday to protest the arrest of the Reuters pair, who were led into the court with iron chains on their wrists.
Government officials from some of the world's major nations, including the United States, Britain and Canada, as well as top United Nations officials, have called for the release of the reporters.
Former US president Bill Clinton also urged that they be freed immediately.
One-time democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi has been accused of backsliding in press freedom since her National League for Democracy (NLD) party took power in 2016. At least 11 journalists were arrested in Myanmar in 2017.
