Two Burmese Baptist pastors sentenced to prison for contributing to news report

Two Burmese Baptist pastors sentenced to prison for contributing to news report

Two Baptist pastors from Myanmar have received prison sentences for leading journalists to a church reportedly destroyed by military air strikes in late 2016. The pastors also helped a human rights group investigate the incident.

Dumdaw Nawng Latt, 65, was sentenced to four years and three months and his nephew, Langjaw Gam Seng, 35, to two years and three months Oct. 27 under the country’s Unlawful Associations Act.

Both men are pastors in the Kachin Baptist Convention, a 300-church denominational body formed when American missionaries were forced to leave the country historically known as Burma by a military dictatorship that seized control in 1962.

In January family members and Kachin Baptist leaders reported the men missing since Christmas Eve 2016, when they were summoned purportedly to assist with the release of civilians held at a military base.

The men were handed over to police under a law left over from the era of British colonial rule on charges of working as “financial supporters, informers, recruiters and rumor-mongers” for ethnic armed groups at war with Burma’s army since 2011.

Latt received an additional two-year sentence for defamation, stemming from remarks he made in media interviews deemed as criticizing the military.