Sean Turnell, an Australian economic adviser to Myanmar’s Aung San Suu Kyi, has said he has been detained, days after Ms Suu Kyi was overthrown in a coup.
Key points:
- Professor Turnell heads the Myanmar Development Institute and is an adviser to Ms Suu Kyi
- He described the military coup against Myanmar’s democratically-elected government as “heartbreaking”
- Thousands have taken to the streets of Yangon and Melbourne to protest the coup and Ms Suu Kyi’s detention
“I’ve just been detained at the moment, and perhaps charged with something, I don’t know what that would be, could be anything at all of course,” he told the BBC.
“Everyone’s been very polite and all that, but obviously I’m not free to move or anything like that.”
In a message to Reuters, he said he was “fine and strong, and not guilty of anything”, along with a smile emoji.
It was not subsequently possible to contact him.
This is the first known arrest of a foreign national in Myanmar since the army generals seized power alleging fraud in a November 8 election that Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) won in a landslide.
Professor Turnell is the director of the Myanmar Development Institute in the capital, Naypyidaw, where he has been based since 2017.
He is also a professor of economics at Macquarie University and has previously worked as a senior analyst at the Reserve Bank of Australia.
In a statement, a Macquarie University spokesperson said Professor Turnell was a “long-standing and distinguished member” of the university’s economics department.
“We are aware of reports of his arrest and fully support both his work in Myanmar and the efforts of the Australian Government to secure his swift release,” the spokesperson said.
Foreign Minister Marise Payne said the Australian Government was “deeply concerned” about the reports of Australian and other foreign nationals being arbitrarily detained in Myanmar.
“We are providing consular assistance to a number of Australians in Myanmar,” Senator Payne said in a statement.
“In particular, we have serious concerns about an Australian who has been detained at a police station.
“We have called in the Myanmar ambassador and registered the Australian Government’s deep concern about these events.”
Professor Turnell had previously posted several times to his Twitter account in the wake of the coup, confirming his safety and expressing dismay at the situation.
“Internet comes and goes, but not the grief on the faces of my Myanmar friends,” Professor Turnell wrote on Twitter earlier this week.
“Gut-wrenching and heartbreaking. Utter catastrophe for the economy of course, but that for later,” he said.
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Anti-military protests as authorities shut down social media
Thousands of people took to the streets of Yangon, Myanmar’s largest city, to protest the coup and demand Ms Suu Kyi’s release.
“Military dictator, fail, fail; Democracy, win, win,” protesters chanted, calling for the military to free the Nobel Peace laureate and other NLD leaders who have been detained since the coup on Monday.
Saturday’s protest is the first sign of street unrest in a country with a history of bloody crackdowns on protesters.
There were also anti-coup protests in Melbourne and the Taiwanese capital Taipei.
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Hundreds gathered in Melbourne’s Federation Square wearing the NLD’s signature red, carrying portraits of Ms Suu Kyi and singing We Won’t Be Satisfied Until The End Of The World — the Burmese-language anthem from the country’s 1988 pro-democracy uprising, brutally put down by the military government.
Myanmar is in the midst of a “national-scale internet blackout”, the NetBlocks Internet Observatory said in a post on Twitter.
Myanmar’s internet blackout
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Real-time network data showed connectivity had fallen to 54 per cent of ordinary levels and witnesses reported a shutdown of both mobile data services and wi-fi connections.
It followed the military’s broadening of a ban on social media, shutting access to Twitter and Instagram.
In a statement, Twitter said it is “deeply concerned” about the order to block internet services in Myanmar and vowed to “advocate to end destructive government-led shutdowns”.
“It undermines the public conversation and the rights of people to make their voices heard,” its spokesperson said.
ABC/wires
Source: news.google.com