Two Reuters journalists guilty of breaching a law on state secrets were found guilty by a Myanmar court and sentenced them to seven years in prison, in a landmark case seen as a test of progress towards democracy in the Southeast Asian country.

According to a Yangon northern district judge Ye Lwin Wa Lone, and Kyaw Soe Oo, the two Reuters journalists breached the colonial-era Official Secrets Act when they collected and obtained confidential documents. “The defendants have breached Official Secrets Act section 3.1.c, and are sentenced to seven years. The time already served by the defendants from Dec. 12 will be taken into consideration,” the judge said.

There was so much of protest from the international arena about the journalists’ arrest and had asked Myanmar government to set them free. Press freedom advocates, the United Nations, the European Union and countries including the United States, Canada and Australia had called for the Reuters journalists’ acquittal.

“Today is a sad day for Myanmar, Reuters journalists Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo, and the press everywhere,” Reuters editor in chief Stephen J Adler said in a statement.“We will not wait while Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo suffer this injustice and will evaluate how to proceed in the coming days, including whether to seek relief in an international forum.”

The reporters had told the court two police officials handed them papers at a north Yangon restaurant moments before other officers arrested them. One police witness testified the restaurant meeting was a set-up to entrap the journalists to block or punish them for their reporting of a mass killing of Rohingya Muslims.

The verdict means Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo - who both have young daughters and have not seen their families outside of prison visits and court hearings for nearly nine months - remain behind bars.

Myanmar government spokesman Zaw Htay has mostly declined to comment throughout the proceedings, saying Myanmar’s courts were independent and the case would be conducted according to the law.

The verdict had been postponed for a week because Judge Ye Lwin was sick. It comes amid mounting pressure on the government of Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi over a security crackdown sparked by attacks by insurgents from the Rohingya Muslim minority on the security forces in August 2017.

More than 700,000 stateless Rohingya Muslims fled across western Myanmar’s border with Bangladesh, according to U.N. agencies.Dozens of reporters from domestic and international media organizations and diplomats were at the court to hear the verdict.