Media rights groups said jail terms handed by a Laotian court to two European reporters and a US citizen today were a travesty of justice, with one urging governments to cut aid to the Communist state.
Belgian Mr Thierry Falise, Frenchman Mr Vincent Reynaud and Mr Naw Karl Mua, a US pastor of Laotian origin, who had been reporting in a conflict zone, were given 15-year jail terms after being arrested emerging from an off-limit jungle area.
Unconfirmed reports said a gunfight took place, during which a security guard died. The three were convicted of charges that included obstructing officers, possession of war weapons and explosives and possession of drugs.
"We must threaten Laos with tough sanctions, there are the means to do it," said Mr Robert Menard, head of Paris-based Reporters Sans Frontieres (RSF), calling the trial a farce.
"It is a country that lives off international aid - we must make it understand that it could pay dearly for behaving like a rogue nation," he told a news conference.
The two reporters had been working on an article on rebels from the ethnic Hmong hilltribe. Mr Mua was their interpreter.
Vienna-based press freedom watchdog The International Press Institute said it sent a letter to Laotian President Mr Khamtay Siphandone complaining that the conditions of their trial had fallen below accepted levels of jurisprudence.
"Since they have not been provided a fair trial, IPI insists the journalists and their translator be released immediately and unconditionally," IPI director Johann Fritz wrote.