Former UK ambassador to Myanmar and artist husband jailed ‘for breaching immigration law’

Charges seen as pretext for cracking down on her critical views

Vicky Bowman and her husband were charged under the Immigration Act and foreigners registration rules (AP)

A former British ambassador to Myanmar has been sentenced to a year in prison for failing to register her residence.

Vicky Bowman’s husband, a national of the country, was given the same sentence for aiding the offence, according to a diplomat who asked to remain anonymous.

Neither Myanmar’s military government nor the British embassy have publicly confirmed the court’s action, but the charge against Ms Bowman has been widely seen as a pretext for cracking down on her for views the government may have considered critical.

The couple were charged under the Immigration Act and foreigners registration rules, but foreigners are rarely prosecuted there for immigration breaches.

The UK last month announced sanctions against Myanmar’s military authorities, coinciding with the fifth anniversary of its deadly crackdown on Rohingya Muslims.

Ms Bowman, who was the British envoy between 2002 and 2006, now leads a business ethics consultancy.

The Myanmar government last week said Ms Bowman’s husband, Htein Lin, had been charged with abetting the failure to register the proper address.

He is a veteran political activist who took part in the country’s failed 1988 uprising against military rule. He was also a political prisoner under a past government.

The Foreign Office said: “We will continue to support Ms Bowman and her family until their case is resolved.”

Bowman’s husband, Myanmar artist Htein Lin, in his studio in Yangon in 2015 (AFP via Getty)

Earlier, a court also sentenced former leader Aung San Suu Kyi to a further three years in jail on election fraud charges.

The couple were arrested on August 24, the military government announced last week.

It said Ms Bowman was detained for failing to inform the authorities last year when she and her husband moved from their registered address in Yangon to Kalaw township in Shan state in east-central Myanmar.

They were arrested during a trip back to Yangon, the country’s biggest city. It said she and her husband were charged under the Immigration Act and the Foreigners Registration Rules.

Ms Bowman, who has applied for a visa to do business in Myanmar, was charged with breaching visa rules because she did not comply with regulations governing foreigners, the statement said.

Ms Bowman was liable to six months to five years’ imprisonment because of her failure to change the address on her official residence permit registration card, it said. It was not immediately clear which of the two charges the couple were sentenced under.

Bowman was the British envoy to Myanmar between 2002 and 2006 (Screengrab: Tedx Talks)

Failure to properly register her address automatically put Ms Bowman in violation of the Immigration Act, which has catch-all provisions saying that foreigners are guilty of violating the terms of their visas if they are found to have broken other laws.

High-profile convictions of foreigners are usually followed by their expulsion from Myanmar before they serve their complete sentences, though their detention period can sometimes last for months. The couple are believed to be detained in Yangon.

Ms Bowman’s first stint as a diplomat in Myanmar was in 1990-93 as the British embassy’s second secretary.

The government’s statement last week said Bowman’s husband was charged with abetting the failure to register the proper address.

Htein Lin is an artist and veteran political activist who was a student when he took part in Myanmar’s failed 1988 uprising against military rule. He was also a political prisoner under a past government.

Myanmar has been under military rule since February 2021, when its army ousted the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi.

Aung San Suu Kyi has been jailed for three years (AP)

The takeover triggered widespread peaceful protests which were violently suppressed and soon erupted into armed resistance. The country has slipped into what some UN experts characterize as a civil war.

According to detailed lists by the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (Burma), an advocacy group, about 2,262 civilians have died in the military government’s crackdown on opponents and more than 15,320 people have been arrested.

The human rights group Amnesty International, reacting to reports of the sentencing, said that “Since the coup, we have seen activists, artists, journalists, students, business owners and medical professionals arbitrarily detained and jailed by the military on the slightest pretext.”

“The latest reports on the conviction of the former UK ambassador and her Burmese artist husband are extremely concerning. Myanmar’s military has a notorious track record of arresting and jailing people on politically motivated or trumped-up charges,” it said in a statement.

Ravina Shamdasani, a spokesperson for the U.N. human rights office in Geneva, said her agency is “deeply shocked that the de facto authorities have sought to punish people who have been committed to the development of the country.”

“Overall, we have raised concerns about the miscarriages of justice for thousands of people in Myanmar. And this trial and these kinds of sentences further add to these concerns that we’ve had,” she said at a news briefing.