Four foreign nationals—from Australia, Japan, the UK, and the US—released from detention on Thursday as part of an amnesty declared by Myanmar’s military junta have returned to their home countries.
Australian economist Sean Turnell, Japanese documentary filmmaker Toru Kubota, former UK envoy to Myanmar Vicky Bowman, and American botanist Kyaw Htay Oo were among nearly 5,800 prisoners freed by the regime on Myanmar’s National Day.
The four were deported to Bangkok upon their release on Thursday. Myanmar’s state-run TV broadcast footage of them being handed over to officials from their respective embassies before departure from Yangon later that day.
Turnell, 58, landed in Melbourne on Friday morning and reunited with his wife Ha Vu, who wrote on social media that she was “over the moon and speechless” at her husband’s return.
She said her husband was asked by a Myanmar official prior to his departure if he hated the country, but she wrote that he replied: “I never hate Myanmar, I love the people of Myanmar, and it’s always like that.”
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, who is currently attending the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Bangkok, said he spoke to Turnell on the phone and mentioned that the professor was in good spirits and making jokes.
“He’s been released from 650 days of unfair, unjust imprisonment. This is just a wonderful outcome,” he told reporters in Bangkok.
Turnell, who was an economic advisor to ousted civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi, was sentenced in late September to three years in prison under the Official Secrets Act and Immigration Act by a junta-controlled court in the regime’s administrative capital Naypyitaw. He was arrested five days after the military coup on February 1, 2021.
Australia’s minister for foreign affairs, Penny Wong, said in a statement on Friday that his return will be “an enormous relief” to many including his family and friends and that the government would continue to provide “whatever consular support he and his family required.”
In a video uploaded by the Burmese-language service of Radio Free Asia (RFA), ex-diplomat Bowman was seen at a transit gate in Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi Airport.
Bowman and her husband, Myanmar national Htein Lin, were both handed one-year sentences in September for immigration offenses related to the former envoy’s alleged violation of the terms of her visa. Htein Lin was also freed under the amnesty.
Also featured in the video was American national Kyaw Htay Oo, who was arrested on terrorism charges and detained for 14 months.
“I have not thought about what I will be doing when I get back home. I only know that Myanmar is still not free,” he told RFA.
In a statement on Thursday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who is also attending the APEC summit in Bangkok, thanked allies and partners for pressing the Myanmar regime to release Kyaw Htay Oo, who he said was “wrongfully detained.”
Japanese filmmaker Kubota, 26, arrived in Tokyo on Friday morning and was welcomed by supporters.
“There are no words to describe how truly grateful I am,” he was quoted in a Japanese media report as saying upon his arrival.
The Australian chapter of rights group Amnesty International urged the international community to not let the move mask the military’s atrocities.
“Myanmar has a history of releasing prisoners at politically opportune times,” said Tim O’Connor, the group’s impact director, in a statement.
“This announcement in the midst of [APEC] meetings in Thailand should not deter international focus from the brutality of the Myanmar military’s activities since the coup in February 2021,” he added.
