Amal Clooney fights to have imprisoned journalists pardoned at UN conference

International human rights lawyer Amal Clooney speaks during a conference called "Press Behind Bars: Undermining Justice and Democracy," at the 73rd session of the United Nations General Assembly, at U.N. headquarters, Friday, Sept. 28, 2018. (AP Photo/Craig Ruttle)

Human Rights lawyer Amal Clooney, who is representing two journalists from Reuters news agency sentenced to hard labour after they uncovered a military massacre, has urged Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi to immediately pardon the reporters and reverse a miscarriage of justice.

Clooney, speaking at a press freedom event at the United Nations on Friday, sought to link the former iconic status of Suu Kyi as a human rights champion and Nobel Peace laureate to the request for the release of Kyaw Soe Oo, 28, and Wa Lone, 32.

Clooney said the reporters were arrested in an attempt by Myanmar to keep Reuters from publishing a story on the extrajudicial killings of 10 Rohingya men and boys.

She noted Suu Kyi had once “allowed young people to hope for a free Myanmar that respected the rule of law."

Clooney speaking to the UN General Assembly on Friday, September 28. (AP)

“She knows that mass murder is not a state secret and that exposing it doesn’t turn a journalist into a spy,” Clooney, the wife of Hollywood actor George, said of Suu Kyi.

“She has said that one political prisoner is one too many and so we’re hopeful that since these are the principles that she herself has espoused, she will step in and try to correct an injustice in this case.”

About 700,000 Rohingya Muslims have fled to Bangladesh amid a brutal military campaign in Buddhist-majority Myanmar.

Myanmar’s army is accused of mass rape, killings and setting fire to thousands of homes in the aftermath of an August 2017 attack by Rohingya militants on security outposts.

Suu Kyi has rejected criticism over the show-trial conviction earlier this month.

“The case has been held in open court,” Suu Kyi said. “If anyone feels there has been a miscarriage of justice, I would like them to point it out.”