Instability in Myanmar: Aung San Suu Kyi Sentenced to Additional Three Years in Prison

A military-controlled court sentenced the country’s former civilian leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, to three more years in prison; Suu Kyi’s economic advisor, an Australian man, also received a three-year sentence. It is unclear if he will be jailed or deported

A Myanmar military court has sentenced ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi and her former adviser, Australian Sean Turnell, to three years in prison for violating the country’s Official State Secrets Act, a very source familiar with the court proceedings confirmed to True Talk News.

Australia immediately rejected the ruling and demanded the release of Turnell, an economist at Sydney’s Macquarie University, who served as a special economic consultant to Suu Kyi and her cabinet.

“The Australian Government has consistently rejected the charges against Australian Professor Sean Turnell during the more than 19 months he had been unjustly detained by the Myanmar military regime,” Foreign Minister Penny Wong said in a statement Thursday.

“We will continue to take every opportunity to advocate strongly for (him) until he has returned to his family in Australia.”

Sean has been one of Myanmar’s greatest supporters for over 20 years and has worked tirelessly to strengthen Myanmar’s economy,” she wrote. “(He) has already been in a Myanmar prison for almost two thirds of his sentence. Please consider the contributions he has made to Myanmar and deport him now.

Thursday’s court ruling was the latest of a series of trials involving 77-year-old Nobel Laureate Suu Kyi, who now faces a total prison term of 23 years.

This week, a beauty queen from Myanmar who had fled to Thailand after speaking out against the junta narrowly escaped being deported to her home country. She is now in Canada where she plans to seek asylum.

And Ma Htet Htet Khine, a journalist who had been working for the BBC’s international charity BBC Media Action, received an additional three-year hard labor prison term on Tuesday after being arrested and charged with incitement under the junta government in 2021.

Elaine Pearson, Asia director of Human Rights Watch, said the most recent court ruling showed Myanmar’s junta had “no qualms about their international pariah status.”

“Concerned governments should take this as a clear signal that they need to take concerted action against the junta if they are going to turn the human rights situation around in the country,” she said in a statement.