Dhaka, Nov 12 (Agency) A Myanmar court on Friday sentenced the American journalist Danny Fenster to 11 years imprisonment on charges of incitement and violations of immigration and unlawful association laws. News agency Reuters quoted the online magazine Frontier Myanmar where Danny Fenster worked as the managing editor that the sentence was ‘the harshest possible under law’. The Editor in Chief of Frontier Myanmar said that there is absolutely no basis to convict Danny of these charges. Fenster is the first Western journalist who has been sentenced to jail by the military government of Myanmar.
He was arrested on May 24 just before he was about to board a flight to Malaysia. The military government had earlier detained two freelance journalists, one each from Poland and Japan. But they were freed and deported, reports Irrawaddy. Earlier this week additional charges of sedition and terrorism act were slapped against Fenster which are punishable by a maximum jail term of 20 years. The US State department had earlier called his detention as profoundly unjust but no reaction has come from the US Embassy in Myanmar on this issue till the filing of this story. Danny Fenster who was currently working as the managing editor of the online magazine Frontier Myanmar earlier worked for Myanmar Now which he quit in July 2020.