Former diplomat free in Myanmar

MYANMAR’S military-controlled government yesterday announced it is releasing and deporting a former British diplomat as part of a broad prisoner amnesty to mark the country’s National Victory Day.

Vicky Bowman, 56, a former British ambassador to Myanmar who had been running a business consultancy, was arrested with her husband, a Myanmar national, in Yangon in August this year. She was given a one-year prison term in September by the prison court for failing to register her residence.

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.

According to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP), a rights monitoring organisation, 16,232 people have been detained on political charges in Myanmar since the army ousted the democratically elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi in February last year.

Of those arrested, 13,015 were still in detention as of Wednesday this week, the AAPP reported, and at least 2,465 civilians have been killed by security forces in the same period.