Macquarie University economist Sean Turnell is free and living in Sydney after 650 days of imprisonment in Myanmar, for what appears to be the “crime” of doing an economist’s job, which is trying to make people’s lives better – in this case the lives of the people of Myanmar.
A former Reserve Bank of Australia official, Turnell worked as an economic adviser to the government of Aung San Suu Kyi and continued to advise her after she was overthrown in a coup in February 2021.
He was imprisoned on trumped-up charges over the handling of confidential information – even though the papers he had in his possession were the papers he needed for his role as an economic adviser.
