EU calls on Myanmar to release Reuters reporters

Reuters journalists Wa Lone (L) and Kyaw Soe Oo, who are based in Myanmar, pose for a picture at the Reuters office in Yangon, Myanmar December 11, 2017. REUTERS/Antoni Slodkowski/Files

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Union on Monday called on Myanmar to drop charges against two Reuters reporters after a court charged them with obtaining secret state documents.

Wa Lone, 32, and Kyaw Soe Oo, 28, have been detained in Myanmar since December 2017. At the time of their arrest, they had been working on an investigation into the killing of 10 Rohingya Muslim men and boys in a village in Rakhine state.

"The European Union expects the charges against the two journalists prosecuted for merely exercising their rights to freedom of expression and carrying out their jobs to be dropped and for them to be released immediately so they can be reunited with their families and resume their vital work," a spokeswoman for the European Union's foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said in a statement.

(Reporting by Robert-Jan Bartunek; Editing by Janet Lawrence)