Myanmar court sentences ex-UK envoy, husband to year in prison

Former UK ambassador to Myanmar Vicky Bowman and her husband, Myanmar artist Htein Lin, convicted over visa violations.

The UK's former ambassador to Myanmar Vicky Bowman speaks with media throughout a gathering of the Myanmar Centre for Accountable Enterprise in Yangon, Myanmar in 2014 [Radio Free Asia via AP]

Yangon/Taipei – Former British ambassador to Myanmar, Vicky Bowman, and her husband, Htein Lin, have been sentenced to at least one yr in jail for immigration offences following a trial in Yangon, a diplomat with data of the matter stated.

Bowman and her husband Htein Lin, a famend Myanmar painter and former political prisoner, have been sentenced on Friday following their arrest in Yangon final week for alleged immigration offences.

A memo from Myanmar’s navy rulers accused Bowman of violating the nation’s immigration act and foreigners’ registration guidelines for failing to tell the authorities final yr when the couple moved quickly from their registered handle in Yangon to Kalaw in Shan State.

Htein Lin has been charged with abetting the “crime”.

Native information web site Myanmar Now reported that the couple appeared at a courtroom contained in the infamous Insein jail on Thursday for his or her listening to, and have been sentenced on Friday.

The arrest and now imprisonment of Bowman, probably the most outstanding advocate of accountable funding in Myanmar and who has years of expertise residing within the nation, and Htein Lin, have despatched shockwaves throughout the enterprise and diplomatic communities.

Hypothesis over the explanation for his or her arrest range, with some suggesting Bowman’s unbiased advocacy work has caught the eyes of the navy regime.

Some diplomats and analysts, nevertheless, see the couple’s imprisonment as akin to taking hostages that may be traded in future talks.

“That is hostage ‘diplomacy’”, former EU ambassador to Myanmar Kristian Schmidt wrote on social media following information of the couple’s arrest.

I’ve recognized Vicky for >20 years – a lady of nice intelligence, integrity and private dedication to the wellbeing of the individuals of #Myanmar. That is hostage “diplomacy”. https://t.co/3U2WMjbX3u

— Kristian Schmidt (@EUAmbSchmidt) August 25, 2022

Al Jazeera’s Tony Cheng, reporting from Bangkok, stated the priority now could be that Bowman and her husband might be used as a type of leverage by Myanmar’s navy rulers.

“The priority is for many individuals who know her, her associates and kinfolk inside Yangon and outdoors, that she is going to grow to be a pawn for the navy to make use of as they've used different foreigners they've detained for the reason that navy coup,” Cheng stated.

“Probably partially as a result of the British authorities put extra sanctions in place in opposition to companies associated to Myanmar’s navy junta final week, and that will grow to be a part of the equation in getting her liberty. However in the intervening time, so far as we perceive, she might be retained at Insein jail for an additional yr.”

Pals additionally fear that Htein Lin, 55, is at larger danger of struggling in jail below the navy, which is understood to torture prisoners. Htein Lin was a pupil protester through the 1988 rebellion in opposition to the then-military authorities, and he spent greater than six years in jail between 1998 and 2004.

The pair’s jailing additionally doubtlessly represents an enormous check for the UK authorities.

Britain was criticised domestically for not appearing swiftly within the case of Iran’s jailing of British-Iranian nationwide Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who spent six years in jail in Iran earlier than being launched earlier this yr.

“This goes far past a personal consular case,” a European diplomat previously based mostly in Yangon informed Al Jazeera.

Bowman is without doubt one of the most important interfaces between Myanmar and international buyers, advocating accountable enterprise and taking part in a pivotal position in steering financial growth, the diplomat stated.

“All eyes at the moment are on the UK authorities to do all they will to get her and Htein Lin freed as quickly as doable,” he added.

“It actually suggests the potential for ‘hostage diplomacy’. It additionally highlights the junta’s excessive paranoia and its utter cluelessness – or indifference – to the affect its actions have on the financial system,” stated Scot Marciel, a former US ambassador to Burma. “They appear to see enemies all over the place.”

Previously the UK ambassador to Myanmar from 2002 to 2006, Bowman, 56, returned to Yangon and has spent practically a decade reforming the personal sector and associated authorities rules in a approach that respects human rights and worldwide requirements through the nation’s decade of financial opening within the 2010s. She speaks fluent Burmese.

One Asian diplomat stated in Yangon that there are a number of doable causes for the arrests, and timing, such because the UK’s refusal to simply accept the navy’s new ambassadorial appointee in London, the most recent sanctions on the regime, and London’s resolution to assist the Rohingya’s crimes in opposition to humanity case on the Worldwide Felony Court docket.

On August 25, the fifth anniversary of the navy’s assault on the Rohingya group in Myanmar, the UK positioned sanctions on three entities linked to the navy management.