Former British Ambassador to Myanmar Vicky Bowman and her husband have reportedly been sentenced to one year behind bars in Myanmar.
Local authorities arrested the pair last week and accused them of flouting the Asian country’s immigration laws by holding a visa that did not match their residency, a violation that could carry up to five years in jail, according to multiple reports.
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“The latest reports on the conviction of the former UK ambassador and her Burmese artist husband are extremely concerning. Myanmar’s military has a notorious track record of arresting and jailing people on politically motivated or trumped-up charges,” Ming Yu Hah, the East and Southeast Asia campaigns deputy regional director for Amnesty International, said in a statement.
Bowman held the ambassador post from 2002 to 2006 and later founded the Myanmar Center for Responsible Business, a nongovernmental organization aimed at cultivating ethical business practices in the country. She stayed in Myanmar after her time as ambassador came to a close.
Her husband, Htein Lin, is a famous political activist and artist who was jailed from 1998 to 2004 for participating in student protests against the country’s prior military junta, per CNN. British officials plan to “continue to support Ms. Bowman and her family until their case is resolved,” officials told the outlet.
Myanmar, which is under military rule, has faced international scrutiny in recent years for alleged human rights abuses. The United Kingdom recently slapped a new round of sanctions against Naypyidaw aimed at curtailing the country’s access to arms. The sanctions coincided with the anniversary of the 2017 crackdown on Rohingya Muslims that killed over 6,000, the BBC reported.
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In tandem with Bowman’s prison sentence, Myanmar’s ousted former leader Aung San Suu Kyi was sentenced to an additional three years behind bars with labor after being found guilty of electoral fraud, bringing her total jail sentence up to 20 years, reports said.
Suu Kyi was one of the first leaders in Myanmar to resist military rule over the nation. Her party won in a landslide back in 2020, but shortly thereafter, the military took power again, claiming election fraud transpired. The bloody coup was widely condemned by Western nations such as the United States and the U.K.
