Myanmar’s military-controlled government says it has released an ex-British diplomat, as well as an Australian academic and a Japanese filmmaker, as part of a prisoner amnesty to mark the country’s National Victory Day.
Government spokesperson major general Zaw Min Tun told the Voice of Myanmar and Yangon Media Group on Thursday that Vicky Bowman, Sean Turnell and Toru Kubota – along with an unidentified American – had been released and deported.
Myanmar’s state-run MRTV reported they were among a total of 5,774 prisoners who were being released. Ms Bowman, 56, a former British ambassador to Myanmar, was arrested with her husband, a Myanmar national, in Yangon in August.
She was given a one-year prison term in September by the prison court for failing to register her residence. Britain’s embassy in Yangon said Ms Bowman had not yet been released from prison.
Mr Turnell, 58, an associate professor in economics at Sydney’s Macquarie University, was arrested by security forces at a hotel in Yangon. He was sentenced in September to three years in prison for violating the country’s official secrets law and immigration law.
Mr Kubota, a 26-year-old Tokyo-based documentary filmmaker, was arrested on July 30 by plainclothes police in Yangon after taking images and videos of a small flash protest against the military takeover last year. He was convicted last month by the prison court of incitement for participating in the protest and other charges and sentenced to 10 years in prison.
The imprisonment of the foreign nationals had been a source of friction between Myanmar’s leaders and their home governments, which had been lobbying for their release.
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