Former British ambassador, Australian adviser, and Japanese journalist to be freed by Myanmar junta

In a rare gesture of goodwill from the isolated junta, Myanmar’s military said on Thursday that it will free over 6,000 detainees, including a former British ambassador, a Japanese journalist, and an Australian economics consultant who will be repatriated.

Since the military’s takeover last year and a deadly crackdown on opposition that resulted in hundreds of people being imprisoned, the nation of Southeast Asia has been in upheaval.

The crackdown has affected dozens of foreign nationals.

Vicky Bowman, a former British diplomat, Sean Turnell, an economist from Australia, and Toru Kubota, a journalist from Japan, “will be freed to honor National Day,” a senior official told AFP.

The junta stated that all three will be deported but did not provide a time frame.

They revised a previous estimate of around 700 detainees to say that 5,774 people will be freed overall, including 600 women prisoners.

The junta’s communications team did not specify how many of those pardoned had been detained during the military’s crackdown on opposition in its announcement of the amnesty.

Bowman, who was ambassador from 2002 to 2006, was taken into custody in August along with her husband for failing to disclose that she was residing at a different home than that which was given on her foreigner registration card.

They eventually served a year in prison.
According to the military source, she will also be reunited with her spouse, renowned artist Htein Lin.

Bowman had not yet been released, according to a British embassy source, but they “anticipated” her to be.

Her spouse, a citizen of Myanmar, was not included among those scheduled for deportation in the junta announcement.

Since the military took control, relations between Myanmar and its former colonial power, Britain, have deteriorated, with the junta this year calling the UK’s recent downgrade of its role in the nation “unacceptable.”

When Sean Turnell was arrested soon after the coup in February of last year, he was serving as an advisor to Suu Kyi, the civilian leader of Myanmar.

He and Suu Kyi were both sentenced to three years in prison in September after being found guilty of violating the official secrets act by a secret junta court.

Along with two other nationals of Myanmar, Kubota, 26, was arrested in July near an anti-government demonstration in Yangon and sentenced to ten years in prison.

The junta authorities had “assured us that Mr. Kubota will be released today,” a source at the Japanese embassy in Myanmar told AFP.

They stated that Kubota will depart for Japan “today.”

Kubota is the sixth foreign journalist to be held in Myanmar, following the release and deportation of US nationals Nathan Maung and Danny Fenster, as well as of Polish national Robert Bociaga and Japanese journalist Yuki Kitazumi.

According to UNESCO, at least 170 journalists have been detained since the coup, and close to 70 of them are currently being held.

“We will be overjoyed,”

According to AFP reporters who also observed several yellow vehicles enter the vast enclosure, families and friends gathered outside Insein jail in Yangon in the hopes that their loved ones would be included in the amnesty.

AFP