A junta-controlled court sentenced a Japanese documentary filmmaker to seven years in prison on Wednesday for participating in an anti-coup demonstration and liaising with protesters.
In a makeshift court inside Yangon’s Insein Prison, 26-year-old Toru Kubota was handed a three-year term for incitement and seven years for violating Section 33a of the Electronic Transactions Law, according to Kyodo News. The second conviction is for using electronic communications technology to engage in acts deemed as threatening to state security, law and order, peace, or national solidarity.
The sentences will be served concurrently, Myanmar Now has learned.
Kubota still faces an outstanding charge for violating the terms of his visa in line with Myanmar’s immigration law, the report said, with his next hearing scheduled for October 12.
He entered Myanmar from Thailand on a tourist visa on July 1, according to the military council, and had reportedly made contact with local activists ahead of filming the widespread anti-junta protests taking place at that time. He was arrested on July 30 while obtaining footage of a demonstration against the February 2021 military coup.
The Japanese government has since called for Kubota’s release.
Kubota has made a number of documentaries related to Myanmar, including films highlighting the persecution of ethnic communities including the Rohingya.
In April of last year, another Japanese journalist, Yuki Kitazumi, was also arrested and charged with incitement, but was released and deported one month later.
Other foreign nationals arrested and jailed by the Myanmar junta for incitement or immigration charges include American journalists Danny Fenster and Nathan Maung, Australian economist Sean Turnell, and former British ambassador Vicky Bowman.
Fenster was released and deported to the US after being detained for nearly half a year in Insein Prison for at least five criminal offences, including alleged violations of the Unlawful Associations Act and the Counterterrorism Law. Before his release, a junta court sentenced him to 11 years in prison for three of the charges. Former US ambassador to the UN Bill Richardson helped negotiate his release.
