Aung San Suu Kyi and Australian academic Sean Turnell, who was her adviser, have reportedly been sentenced to three years in prison after a closed trial in Myanmar.
Turnell, an economist at Sydney’s Macquarie University, was first arrested on February 6 last year, just days after the army overthrew Myanmar’s elected government, plunging the country into chaos.
Turnell was later charged with violating Myanmar’s Official Secrets Act, and over the past year has appeared alongside co-accused, including the ousted leader and three of his former cabinet members. A source, who declined to be named because of the sensitivity of the issue, told Reuters that Turnell and the ousted leader had received “three years each, without hard labour”. Both had pleaded not guilty.
Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong rejected the court ruling and called for Turnell’s immediate release.
“Professor Turnell was tried in a closed court – Australia’s charge d’affaires and consular officials in Myanmar did their best to attend the verdict but were denied access to the court,” he said Wong. “We will continue to take every opportunity to strongly advocate for Professor Turnell until he returns to Australia with his family. We recognize the strong international support he has shown for him, including from our region.”
There is very limited information on judicial proceedings involving political prisoners in Myanmar, where more than 15,600 people have been detained since last year’s coup. The hearings are not accessible to reporters and defense lawyers have been gagged from speaking to the media.
Aung San Suu Kyi had already been sentenced to 20 years in prison in separate cases and still faces trial.
The military had accused Turnell of possessing confidential documents when he was arrested last year, according to the Irrawaddy news site. Turnell reportedly denied the allegation and said the documents were not confidential, but were financial recommendations he had given in his capacity as an adviser to Aung San Suu Kyi’s government.
The case against him has been widely condemned by rights groups.
Elaine Pearson, Asia director of Human Rights Watch, said the sentences handed down were a “cruel injustice”. “The junta’s willingness to pile on convictions to Aung San Suu Kyi, along with Australian economist Sean Turnell and three of her ministers, shows that Myanmar’s military has no qualms about its international pariah status.
“Concerned governments should take this as a clear signal that they need to take concerted action against the junta if they want to turn around the human rights situation in the country,” he said. Turnell was denied adequate access to a lawyer, he added.
Turnell has worked on economic and banking issues in Myanmar since the early 2000s, focusing on promoting reform and growth. He has served as a special economic adviser to Aung San Suu Kyi and as a senior economic adviser to the Minister of Planning, Finance and Industry. Prior to that, he worked at the Reserve Bank of Australia.
Last month, when the UN’s special envoy to Myanmar, Noeleen Heyzer, met with the head of the junta, Min Aung Hlaing, to call for a de-escalation of the violence in the country, she also conveyed a request of the Australian government calling for Turnell’s release.
Board-controlled media later published what it claimed was an account of their meeting, in which Min Aung Hlaing said: “On Mr Sean Turnell’s case, if the Australian government takes positive action, we will not have to take severe action. . In the case of Mr. Sean Turnell, the evidence shows that severe penalties could be imposed.”
At least 15,683 people have been detained since the army took power on February 1, 2021, and 12,540 remain in detention, according to the Political Prisoners Assistance Association, which tracks arrests and killings.
Other foreigners detained include the former British ambassador to Myanmar, Vicky Bowman, and Toru Kubota, a Japanese filmmaker.
Separately, Amnesty International released a report on Thursday arguing that Facebook algorithms “substantially contributed” to atrocities committed by the military against Myanmar’s Rohingya minority when Aung San Suu Kyi was in power.
“In the months and years leading up to the atrocities, Facebook’s algorithms fueled a storm of hatred against the Rohingya that contributed to violence in the real world,” said Agnès Callamard, Secretary-General of Amnesty International.
“While Myanmar’s military was committing crimes against humanity against the Rohingya, Meta was benefiting from the echo chamber of hate created by its hate spiral algorithms.”
Amnesty’s reassessment of Facebook’s role in the genocide is based on a cache of documents released by whistleblower Frances Haugen in 2021, which “allow a renewed understanding of how [Facebook’s] Content shaping algorithms archived mass violence,” the report said.
In a statement, Meta’s Rafael Frankel said: “Our security and integrity work in Myanmar continues to be guided by feedback from local civil society organizations and international institutions, including the UN fact-finding mission in Myanmar; the human rights impact assessment we commissioned in 2018; as well as our ongoing human rights risk management.”
Additional reporting by Alex Hern