Myanmar
At the time of their arrest, Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo were working on an investigation into the killing of 10 Rohingya Muslim villagers during an army crackdown.
The country's leader has failed to speak out against atrocities targeting the country's Rohingya minority, Amnesty said.
The journalists were investigating the killing of Rohingya villagers by security forces at the time of their arrest last December.
The two reporters had been investigating a massacre of Rohingya villagers when they were arrested last year.
WHAT'S HAPPENING
It's the first time the United Nations has explicitly called for Myanmar officials to face genocide charges.
The team compiled accounts of crimes including gang rape, the torching of hundreds of villages, enslavement and killings of children.
“This administration continues to act like a spoiled child who wants everything,” said the leader of Asian Americans Advancing Justice AAJC.
Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo, who pleaded not guilty to the charges on Monday, face up to 14 years in prison.
But they don't yet have the public support of the president -- and Mitch McConnell is delaying a vote on proposed sanctions for perpetrators of the crisis.
Aung San Suu Kyi once said: "It is not power that corrupts but fear. Fear of losing power corrupts those who wield it.”