Danny Fenster: Myanmar court gives US journalist 11 years jail

A Myanmar military court has sentenced US journalist Danny Fenster to 11 years in jail.

Fenster was found guilty of breaching immigration law, unlawful association and encouraging dissent against the military.

He was earlier this week slapped with two additional charges of sedition and terrorism, which carry a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.

A verdict on the new charges has not yet been given.

Fenster, 37, who was the managing editor of online site Frontier Myanmar, was detained at Yangon international airport in May.

He is one of dozens of local journalists that have been detained since a military coup in February.

According to Frontier, Fenster had earlier worked for Myanmar Now, an independent news site that has been critical of the military.

"The charges were all based on the allegation that he was working for banned media outlet Myanmar Now. Danny had resigned from Myanmar Now in July 2020 and joined Frontier the following month, so at the time of his arrest in May 2021 he had been working with Frontier for more than nine months," said the news site.

"There is absolutely no basis to convict Danny of these charges."

Myanmar's military leaders seized power in February from former ruling party the National League of Democracy.

It claimed it needed to do so because of widespread fraud, despite the country's election commission saying there was no evidence to support these claims.

Since then, at least 1,178 people were killed and 7,355 arrested, charged or sentenced in a crackdown on dissent, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners.

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