"Myanmar journalist says she was fired over story on military rape allegations", 4 Nov 2016

A journalist who worked at the English-language Myanmar Times has said she was dismissed for an article she wrote on allegations of rape by security forces following government pressure on the newspaper.

Former special investigations editor Fiona MacGregor had been reporting on Rakhine state, much of which is under military lockdown following deadly attacks last month on police, who have blamed Muslim Rohingya insurgents.

MacGregor’s article, published on 27 October and titled “Dozens of rapes reported in northern Rakhine state”, cited Chris Lewa, the head of a Rohingya rights organisation, saying around 30 women had been raped by security forces in a single village.

It also referenced a statement by the Burma Human Rights Network that it was “extremely concerned” by at least 10 alleged rape cases that had been documented by civilians since military operations started, “including one woman who was three months pregnant and later suffered a miscarriage”.

MacGregor – who has also written for the Guardian – wrote in an email to other journalists working in Yangon that she was told this week that the piece, as well as several “other unidentified articles I had written, breached company policy by damaging national reconciliation and the paper’s reputation”.

She said some senior staff at the paper had led her to believe that the government had put pressure on the Myanmar Times ahead of her sacking…