缅甸法院即将决定在押路透社记者的命运

A court in Myanmar will rule next week whether two journalists for the Reuters news agency will face trial for allegedly breaking the country's secrecy laws by reporting on the Rohingya crisis.

Wa Lone, 32, and Kyaw Soe Oo, 28, are accused of breaching the Official Secrets Act, which carries a maximum penalty of 14 years in prison.

The pair has been held in custody since their arrest in December and are accused of being in possession of leaked sensitive material linked to a military crackdown in crisis-hit Rakhine state, home to Myanmar's minority Muslim Rohingya population.

Their detention has prompted an outcry among international human rights groups.

Defense lawyers asked the judge at a pretrial hearing Monday to drop the charges, saying the prosecution had failed to provide sufficient evidence to prove their case.

The reporters were meeting with two police officers they say they had never met before in northern Yangon. The men later told relatives that as soon as they were handed some papers, they were arrested almost immediately.

Human Rights Watch again called for the release of the journalists.

Reuters President and Editor-in-Chief Stephen Adler said this was a "critical juncture" in the case.

"Freedom of the press is essential in any democracy, and to charge Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo under these circumstances, without any proof of their having done anything unlawful, would seriously undermine Myanmar's constitutional guarantee of free speech," Adler said in a statement.