# The Times of Israel — "Israeli tech used to imprison journalists in Myanmar — report" (May 2019) > *This is a May 2019 Times of Israel report summarizing a Washington Post investigation that found Myanmar's military-backed government used Cellebrite's phone-extraction products to breach the mobile phones of two Reuters journalists, Pulitzer Prize-winners Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo, who were jailed for seven years for reporting on the killing of Rohingya Muslims. It captures the Myanmar/Reuters-journalists case, a former Myanmar military official's description of the country as a "major customer," and Cellebrite's own stated human-rights position (demanding customers "uphold the standards of international human rights law"). It matters to the Arkansas surveillance investigation because Cellebrite (phone extraction; distinct from NSO Group / Pegasus spyware) is among the surveillance vendors adopted by Arkansas law-enforcement agencies, and the Myanmar case is the canonical documented misuse of its tools against journalists.* ## Source metadata - **Publisher:** The Times of Israel (reporting on a Washington Post investigation) - **URL:** https://www.timesofisrael.com/israeli-tech-used-to-imprison-journalists-in-myanmar-report/ - **Archived:** 2026-06-07 via firecrawl_scrape - **Tier:** 3 (established journalism) ## Extract — verbatim (lightly cleaned) > The military-backed government of Myanmar used Israeli technology to gather evidence that led to the jailing of two Reuters journalists, according to report on Sunday. > Police in Myanmar used Petah Tikva-based Cellebrite's products to breach the journalists' mobile phones, leading to the imprisonment of Pulitzer Prize-winners Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo, who were sentenced to seven years in prison for violating state secrecy laws, the Washington Post reported. > The two journalists had been reporting on alleged government genocide against the minority Rohingya Muslim community, 1.1 million of whom have fled Myanmar due to persecution. > Cellebrite said its technology "enables investigators" and provides "a complete and objective picture of evidence, empowering agencies and investigators to solve and close cases faster." > A Cellebrite company statement said it froze all sales to Myanmar last year. The Israeli firm said it demands customers "uphold the standards of international human rights law," and in the "extremely rare case" of non-compliance, the company would cancel agreements. > A former Myanmar military official described the country as a "major customer" of Cellebrite, though the company said four or five months ago it would stop business in Myanmar, he told the Post. > Another Israeli company, NSO, is facing lawsuits alleging it sold spyware to governments with questionable human rights records. (Note for the wiki: this article correctly keeps Cellebrite — physical-access phone extraction — separate from NSO Group's Pegasus spyware, which it mentions only as a distinct company facing its own lawsuits.)