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Myanmar junta sentences ex-British ambassador to one year in prison
The couple have been detained in Yangon final month after being accused by authorities of violating immigration legal guidelines. Myanmar army authorities alleged the deal with Bowman had registered to her visa didn’t match her residence. Breaches of Myanmar’s Immigration Act carry a most sentence of 5 years in jail.
Bowman served as Britain’s high diplomat to the Southeast Asian nation from 2002 to 2006. After finishing her posting as ambassador, Bowman remained within the nation because the founding father of the non-governmental group Myanmar Heart for Accountable Enterprise.
Bowman, who served as Britain’s high diplomat to the Southeast Asian nation from 2002 to 2006, was detained by authorities final month, alongside together with her husband, Htein Lin.
Bowman’s husband, Htein Lin, a Myanmar nationwide, is a outstanding artist and former political prisoner who spent six and a half years behind bars over his function within the student-led uprisings in opposition to the previous army junta in 1998. He was launched in 2004.
A UK Overseas Workplace spokesperson informed CNN that the federal government would “proceed to help Ms. Bowman and her household till their case is resolved.”
Ming Yu Hah, Amnesty Worldwide’s Deputy Regional Director for East and Southeast Asia Campaigns condemned the information in a press release, calling the ruling “extraordinarily regarding.”
“The newest stories on the conviction of the previous UK ambassador and her Burmese artist husband are extraordinarily regarding. Myanmar’s army has a infamous observe file of arresting and jailing folks on politically motivated or trumped-up fees,” Yu Hah mentioned.
Final month, the British authorities introduced a contemporary spherical of sanctions focusing on companies linked to Myanmar’s junta, which took energy in a bloody coup in February 2021.
In the meantime, Friday’s verdict in opposition to Suu Kyi is the newest in a string of punishments meted out in opposition to the 77-year-old and means she now faces 20 years in jail.
Nonetheless, that is the primary time Suu Kyi — a figurehead of opposition to many years of army rule within the nation — has been sentenced to onerous labor for the reason that coup final yr.
Friday’s trial associated to the November 2020 common election that her Nationwide League for Democracy gained in a landslide, defeating a celebration created by the army. Three months after that election the army seized energy to stop Suu Kyi’s social gathering forming a authorities, alleging electoral fraud.
Suu Kyi and her social gathering deny these allegations and say they gained the election pretty.