Reporters Wa Lone, 32, and Kyaw Soe Oo, 28,
were arrested in Yangon in December 2017 and later jailed for violating
the state secrets act, a charge Reuters said was trumped up to muzzle
their reporting.

Prosecutors say the two had classified
information regarding security operations in Rakhine state, from where
hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslims fled during an army-led
crackdown the United Nations has dubbed “ethnic cleansing”.

Aung Naing, a judge at the Yangon
Regional High Court, said Friday the original verdict was “not wrong
according to the law” and was a “reasonable decision”.

“The court decides to dismiss the appeal,” he said.

Lawyers can now appeal to the Supreme Court in Myanmar, a process that could take an estimated six months.

The reporters’ wives cried after the decision
which condemns the pair to continue their stay at Yangon’s notorious
Insein prison, where they have been held for the last 13 months.

The two men — who were not present for the
decision — have insisted they were victims of a police set-up, pointing
to testimony from a serving officer who said a superior ordered others
to entrap them.

At the time of the arrest they were probing a massacre of 10 Rohingya.

The original trial was widely regarded as a
sham and seen as punishment for their investigation, sparking outrage
around the world including from US Vice President Mike Pence.

Outside
the country, the two men have been hailed as media freedom heroes and
jointly named Time Magazine’s Person of the Year 2018, alongside other
persecuted and slain journalists.

But they have gained little sympathy within Myanmar.

The violent military campaign in 2017 forced
more than 720,000 Rohingya across the border to Bangladesh, with
refugees bringing accounts of murder, rape and arson.

UN investigators have called for top generals
to be investigated for genocide and singled out civilian leader Aung San
Suu Kyi for criticism for failing to stop the crackdown.

The image of the formerly renowned champion of
human rights has been further damaged by the Reuters trial, and she has
yet to speak up in their defence.

Reacting to the verdict outside the court the
European Union ambassador to Myanmar Kristian Schmidt said he looked to
the president of Myanmar to “correct” the injustice with a possible
pardon.