Life Uncut - Sean Turnell Spent 650 Days in a Myanmar Prison After he was Mislabelled as a Spy!

Episode Date: November 21, 2023

For 650 days Sean Turnell was held in Myanmar’s Insein Prison on the trumped-up charge of being a spy. Today Sean joins the podcast to share his incredible story.In our chat he recounts how he went from being a very cheerful university professor to life in one of the most notorious prisons in South-East Asia.  Sean shares:-How the military coup in Myanmar led to him being arrested -What life was like inside the 'box' that he was imprisoned in-What he did to remain sane for the 650 days-How his wife campaigned tirelessly for his release-Whether he lives in fear now after sharing his experiences of the Myanmar Military so publicly-The suffering of the people of Myanmar under a bestial regime that a lot of the world doesn't know about We were absolutely gripped by Sean's story and still don't understand how he remains so positive! If you'd like to read Sean's book and learn more of his story you can grab it here! If you have a question please send it on it to life uncut podcast on Instagram hereJoin us on tiktok Or join the facebook group here Tell your mum, tell your dad, tell your dog, tell your friend and share the love because WE LOVE LOVE! xx        See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Life Uncut acknowledges the traditional custodians of country whose lands were never ceded. We pay our respects to their elders past and present. Always was, always will be Aboriginal land. This episode was recorded on Darug Walamutta land. Hi guys and welcome back to another episode of Life Uncut. I'm Laura. I am Brittany and today I am actually so excited to bring you this episode and the reason I say I'm so excited is we're speaking to an amazing man. He's a professor. He's Australian. His name is Sean Turnell. Now you might have heard the name Sean Turnell over the years. We're going

to get into his story but long story short, he was put into a Myanmar prison. It's a political prison of sorts. He was working over in Myanmar and basically the military came one day, arrested him for espionage. They said he was a spy, which if you look at Sean, please Google Sean if you've got the time right now. Have a look at who he is. He's a ball of sunshine. He's in his 60s and he's not somebody you could imagine being in prison, but he was put in prison for 650 days. This is all something that played out during the time of the military coup in Myanmar. And Sean gets into the history of it. If it's not something that you're familiar with, all of that will be set up in the way in which he speaks about it but it's his resilience it is his positivity it is the

outlook on life that he has for someone who has experienced such incredible traumas who was held in one of the most dire prisons and you know this wasn't just a cell that he was held in but he speaks about the box which he was held in the lack of stimulus that he received for the time that he was held captive and for not doing anything wrong for zero crimes that were committed but for being held for being a spy. I think the way in which he speaks about it, his outlook, I mean, I struggled to understand how he was able to get through that ordeal and still come out of it the resilient person that he is. Yeah. And it was a bit of an awakening. I've always wanted to know the inner workings of a prison, but to sit down with Sean, somebody who did spend 650 days in a prison that

is called Insane Prison, that's literally the name, to speak about what the conditions were like, how they treated him, connection to the outside, were the embassies helping? What were the other prisoners like? Did he have help? Did he feel like he was going to die? How did he get through it? We covered so much in it and coming from the horse's mouth for me was truly incredible. Sean Turnell is an honorary professor of economics at Macquarie University and a senior fellow at the Lowy Institute. Now Sean spent years trying to help the people of Myanmar, which is previously known as Burma turned their economy around. He served as an advisor to Aung San Suu Kyi who is known for her leadership. She's basically the face of the fight for democracy. Now in 2021 after the

military coup Sean was arrested and he spent 650 days in Myanmar's quite ironically named insane prison. Sean has just released his book which is called An Unlikely Prisoner and he's here today to talk us through what got him through those grueling 650 days and just how incredible his wife was, how tirelessly she campaigned for his release. Sean, welcome to Life Uncut. Well, thank you very much for having me. Sean, I reckon this is one of the most insane stories that we've had on the podcast before. And like, when we say it's left to feel, I mean, we've interviewed people who have been kidnapped in Somalia. We've interviewed people who have come from cults, like we've done some

crazy stories. But I guess one of the reasons why yours is so left of field is because there is so much politics and economy and everything else that goes along with it. We're going to get into the full backstory, but it would be remiss of us to let you get away with not starting the podcast episode in the way that we do with every single one of our guests. And that is your most embarrassing story. Well, I have many embarrassing stories, but probably the most relevant was when I was in my early 20s, my first car was a little green Holden Gemini. And I absolutely loved this car. And one morning I was setting off to the uni. So I was a young student getting in the car and my mum come out to wave me goodbye. And she said, look, just drive really carefully because, you

know, people do crazy stuff and all that. And I said, mum, don't worry, nothing will ever happen to me. And then I said, touch wood. I got in the car, drove round the corner and ran into a tree. All I remember was the screams of my mum, one street away, who heard what had happened. So I literally touched wood within moments of saying it. So she didn't see it, but she heard it. She sure heard it. Yeah. And I had to live that down because all of my neighbours saw it, the parents of my friends. It was just excruciating and referred to for many, many years afterwards. Was the car a write-off or was it able to be repaired? It was repaired, thankfully,

and I then had it for a decade or more. Perfect. That's all right. You gave it a real good test drive. They were good cars. Do you know what? You're probably the first person, Sean, in a long time on Life Uncut to have an embarrassing story that wasn't about poo. So congratulations. That's That's a feat in itself. Sean, let's go back to before your arrest. How did you find yourself in Burma and how did you find yourself as an economical advisor for Suchi? So I'd known the Burmese community here in Australia for a long time

and I'd been helping them and the whole democracy movement on economics and trying to critique the military that had ruled the country and misruled the country for decades. So I got to know the community quite well and through them and through my work, I got to know Aung San Suu Kyi, who then invited me to come over when she finally won office in some big elections held in 2015. So yeah, it sort of began by just associating myself with the refugee community, the Burmese refugee community here in Australia. What was happening in the country at the time? So just to set up a little bit around like,

what was the economical climate? What was the political climate? And why were you required to be there? Why was your skills necessary? Sean's like, how long do we have? I know. But I just think that in terms of people understanding sort of the unrest of what was going on, it's quite important. Yeah. So Myanmar or Burma, as it used to be known, has been misruled by the military for decades and in particularly brutal ways. And that's also, you know, it's been terrible at a human rights level and all that, but really bad for the economy as well. So we're used to this idea of the fast growing Asian economies, the tigers, we often call them. So Myanmar missed out on that completely. So bad was the policy making

of these generals who really just wanted to extract resources out of the country, basically for themselves to keep control. So Burma missed out on all of that. So when Aung San Suu Kyi won office in 2015, almost priority number one was to catch up to the other countries in Asia. And because I'd worked on Burma, you know, for 30 years up to that point, she said, look, Sean is there any way you can come over and give us a hand and so I got the support of my uni Macquarie uni as well as the Australian government and within a couple of months of Suu Kyi asking me could I come over I was over there in Yangon in this bizarre capital city called Naypyidaw as well and then yeah set off from there. With everything that was happening in terms of human rights

violations at the time were you not concerned about going over there at a time when so many people were actually fleeing the country? No I wasn't funnily enough I think the hope was so great back there in 2015 and when Suu Kyi took office. Myanmar in many ways was a place full of hope and expectation about the future. People were energised, particularly the young people who I increasingly worked with while I was over there. So, you know, there were terrible things taking place all through the time I was there, but there was this great sense of progress as well. So it was really just exciting to be a part of it. How did you become an advisor for Suu Kyi and how did Suu Kyi get elected into government when she was under house arrest for the better part of 20 years?

Yeah, so she was locked away for a long time, but funnily enough, that was how she heard about me because I'd been writing a lot about Burma and I wrote a book about Burma, about its monetary and financial history, which bizarrely to recall now, was actually serialized by the BBC Burmese service. So the BBC used to broadcast into Burma right through the period of military rule. And so under house arrest, Suu Kyi heard my broadcast. So then when she was finally released from house arrest back in about 2010, for what we thought would be the final time, she asked her, could I come over and see her. And she told me about how she listened to the book, which again, just surprised the hell out of me. Yeah, we really just established a rapport over my interest in

Myanmar and its history and all that, but also over Sherlock Holmes books. She's an obsessive about Sherlock Holmes and so was I. What's so funny? What was she in house arrest for, for that period of time? I mean, 20 years is an awfully long time to be under house arrest. Well, just for advocating democracy. So she's the daughter of one of the founders of the country, one of the leaders of Burma's independence back in the 40s. But she was very much somebody agitating for freedom and human rights and justice, as well as democracy in Burma. So she was in prison from 88. She got the Nobel Peace Prize in 1990. So she was always this dissident figure, if you like, but with immense support from the people in Myanmar who always know her

as Mother Sue. So she has almost a status in Burma or Myanmar that transcends politics or anything else. What happened in February of 2021 in terms of the military taking back control? Yeah, so Aung San Suu Kyi had just one re-election. And so we were all geared up for what we hoped would be a great second term of her government and to do many more reforms than we'd even been able to do up to that point. But the military, increasingly unhappy. The military in Myanmar has a long history of misjudging the community. And I think for them, they were shocked that they did so badly at those elections. They were sort of shocked but humiliated and angry. And I think taking a little bit of a lead from Donald Trump in the US started to say that the election was

rigged and all the rest of it, which was just absurd. But their anger just slowly built. And then eventually they undertook this military coup on the 1st of February 2021. They just seized government. Was she not at all put off by the fact that her father in the same position was assassinated by the military, assumed military? She's a person of immense courage. And a couple of times through, you know, down the decades, the military have tried to kill her. Notably back in 2003, there was a particular incident known as the Depey Inn Massacre, where a bunch of people around her were killed, but she was the target. But she managed to escape that. But likewise, you know, the military would love to eliminate her if they could. And it's one of the things

why we always worry for her. I worry for her now, to be honest. But I think they've always stepped back a little bit, except for those incidents that I mentioned, just because they know, I think, the international reaction would be extreme were they to do that. But it worries us all, you know. But she is a person of immense courage. And I think her father's example, rather than frightening her. I think it inspires her. Let's talk about the day that you were arrested then. How long had you been in Myanmar by the day you were arrested? So I'd been there for about five years up to that point. Although I'd come back to Australia for a visit and I was going to do some teaching at Macquarie. I was taking a bit of a break

actually. And then COVID hit. So I got stuck in Australia for a bit. And then finally some relief flights that were taking people between Australia and Myanmar suddenly opened up, still in the middle of COVID. And I got one of those back to Myanmar. So, and I'd really only just arrived back, had two weeks of quarantine in a hotel in Yangon and the coup took place the day I got out. Yeah. So, but effectively five years up to the point of the coup. What was that day like? I mean, when the coup happened, what was happening in the community? Was there fear? Was there outrage? Like, was it disbelief? Like, how was that processed? Above all, it was outrage. The people were not frightened and they came out on the streets

really quickly and they really were angry because by then, of course, the country had experienced about five years of democracy. But I mentioned too, you know, the admiration I've had and still have for the young people and they were not going to stand for it. Their view, I think, you could characterise as, you know, they'd seen their country ruled by the military for decades and they were just not going to have it. You know, this is a new, young, savvy generation who had seen the world and knew what was going on. They all had mobile phones and all the rest of it. And they knew that military rule in Myanmar was unacceptable. So they came out straight away, very peacefully, but very vibrant and lots of banging of pots and pans through the night,

lots of singing. Again, you know, really peaceful demonstrations and so on, but yeah, a real sense of vigour. And the military's response to their peaceful demonstrations, Was the military also peaceful? At the beginning, yes. But when I say beginning, only for a few days. And of course, they were still arresting people even at that time. But then they very quickly used the guns. It didn't take much time at all.

They just shot down in cold blood civilians in the streets and then just continued. How many civilians? Do you know those sort of figures? It's really interesting. So we know that definitely about 10,000 absolutely certified have been killed. But it's probably much more. It's probably in the leagues of 20,000, 30,000 and similar numbers then of political prisoners as well.

So, yeah, so the numbers are really, really large. Why do you think it is, I mean, we're looking at what is happening with Gaza and Israel right now and it is completely consuming every single media outlet in the world. How does something like that go down and 10,000 innocent people are shot by the military in cold blood by their own military and the world isn't being stopped in its tracks? because I don't remember it being that big a news over here.

It's so frustrating, really frustrating for me and all my Myanmar friends here in Australia. I think partly COVID is responsible because it took place in the middle of COVID and so even reporters getting access, et cetera, to the story was difficult. I think also conditions in Myanmar at that moment were not that good. There were already atrocities taking place in Rakhine State against this group called the Rohingya. So in other words, the story was a bit messy as well.

And also like, oh, it's just something else happening over there because it's, you know, they're so corrupt anyway. That's right. And then, of course, later, you know, we get the Russian invasion of Ukraine. And then, as you mentioned, Gaza and so on. So Myanmar just keeps slipping down the list of international attention. Sean, can you talk us through the day that you were arrested? What happened in that day and in the lead up?

So on that day, I got an email from someone who identified themselves as a secret friend saying that military intelligence had taken over the hotel and that they had directed the CCTVs to my door in the hotel and it was time to go. So I just got goosebumps. Imagine opening that email. It certainly gave me a fright at the time. I sort of half been expecting it, but that didn't make it any less scary. So the coup had taken place five days earlier and I tried to get out at that point.

Well, actually, for the first few days, I hadn't. I was a little bit complacent, to be honest, for the first few days. And I was more concerned to trying to help Burmese friends get out, get to the border with Thailand and escape. But then I started to think and I was getting warnings from the US embassy, the Australian embassy, other people just saying, Sean, they're going to come after you. It's time to get out. But I couldn't get out because, again, because of COVID.

So there was no regular flights in and out of the country. again there were only those official relief flights and of course they were completely full by then so I was I was waiting in fact ironically enough at about midnight that previous night I'd heard word that I possibly had got a flight to London and I was going to get on it because I thought okay I've really got to get out of Myanmar doesn't matter where you go you like just get me on a plane exactly didn't matter where was there a part of you I mean you say oh there's a part of me that was expecting them to come for me but was there another part because I imagine if I was in that position, there's another part of me that thought I have

the US embassy, I have the Australian embassy on my side. They are going to protect me. Like, even if they come for me, I'm going to be okay. Did you have a security blanket faith in our government? Very much so. That was always there in the background. Also, I was a reasonably prominent figure in Myanmar and known, you know, for the economic reforms and all that. So grabbing me was a big deal of the military. And at the back of my mind, I thought, you know, they're not really going to do that. Why would they do that? There's nothing to gain from it. It'll just bring about really substantial negative attention to them. Yeah. So the rational part of my brain kicked in a little bit as well. But of course, the rational part of the brain is not that useful

in an irrational situation. So the military wasn't thinking on rational lines that this would cause a farce. They just thought, okay, that guy, he's the guy who's always on at us, etc spy yeah spy totally yep he's the guy from mi6 etc so let's get him so what happened then that day so you received this email you tried to get onto a flight it didn't happen does it just make you a sitting duck yeah it did so after getting the message i did two things i rang the australian ambassador and said look i think i'm going to be arrested then packed my bag went downstairs now here's where i made another mistake and and this could be because i'm an economist and all the rest of it. But I made sure that I settled the bill first, which meant that I sort of

hung around the lobby. You told them you're leaving, yeah. Or you lined up at the lobby, right, to pay the bill. And that could have been the moments that stopped you. I did. And I'd just given my credit card to the concierge when I could just feel all these police and military just forming around me and behind me. But the strange coda of that, or not so strange, the frustrating coda of that was that the hotel still charged the card. so to make, you know, add insult to injury. Yeah, but by then, of course, you know, they'd surrounded me and asked me to sit down and told me that they had lots of questions to ask and all that. And so did you still understand at this point that you were being arrested, even when

they popped you in the van to take you away? Did you still think it was temporary? If they're going to ask me the questions, then they're going to let me go? Sure did. I thought it was just about giving me a fright and sending a message to not just me, but other foreigners that you are not immune. This is serious. You've got to play ball. We're in charge now. So yeah, so I still thought at that stage, it was really horrible. I don't want to under-exaggerate that because I was putting handcuffs and all the rest of it. And for someone like me, a mild-mannered, you know, professor of economics from down the road at Macquarie Uni to be in, you know, in handcuffs was terrifying and horrible. But I thought, no, no, no, look, you know,

they're still going to release me after a couple of days maximum. Sean, where was your wife at this point? So she's in Sydney. So I'd called her very, very early. In fact, actually, I said I'd call the Australian ambassador first. I think I called my wife first and told her what was going to happen. And so she was already on the task. She was calling all around, Department of Foreign Affairs.

She was on the phone to the US Embassy, the UK Embassy, everyone she could think of at that point. And you were transported to the insane prison. And held there, what did the next couple of days look like? Because at this point in time, you're thinking, surely I'm only going to be held for a few days. Were you given any information about the length of time, the severity, or what was going on? Or were you kept completely in the dark?

Kept completely in the dark. And what made it particularly frightening and sort of frustrating as well is that even on the ride out to Insane, I didn't know where I was going because there are two big things in the northwest of Yangon. One is Insane Prison and the other is the airport. So as we're going along, I'm fearing that I'm heading towards insane prison. But there's a little part of my head saying, don't worry, they're taking you to the airport and putting you on a plane.

So I knew absolutely nothing. I was then held in isolation in this room that, in the book I called The Box, and I was held there for two months, no information at all. So it was a mix of feeling just incredibly frightened and frustrated most of the time, but also, yeah, still hoping, though, that, you know, they're going to let me go. Can you talk to us about this box that you spent eight weeks in? What did it look like? How big was it?

What was in there? So the best description I have on it is that it's like one of those small shipping containers, those so-called 20-foot equivalent units, I think they call them. So about that size, and like being locked in one of those in that there was no outlet to the world outside except for a tiny slit window of glass, which was just for the police to be able to look in. Other than that, absolutely nothing in it. concrete floor, these sort of fake wood panelling walls. And in the middle of it, which was really

scary, at first glance was scary, was a metal chair bolted down to the concrete floor in the very middle of the room. And to the chair were attached these lengths of chain with handcuffs and ankle manacles to it. And that took up most of the room. So yes, I was just locked in this box for then for two months. And I'd have to sort of sleep around the chair. And the only exercise I could do was just walk backwards and forwards in the box so and I kept on thinking you know this is what animals do right when they're locked up and it's sort of oddly comforting in a way I mean this is the weird thing about it you find that there's a part of your brain that I think goes into sort of ancient wisdom or you know you don't learn this stuff but you just find that the best

way to deal with your fear and anxiety is just a walk so I would just pace up and down the box all the time. How did you go to the bathroom? How did you like sleep on concrete like the things that we take for granted as everyday like necessities how did you have access to that yeah I mean all that was awful I mean the bathrooms I could have written another book about the bathrooms in the prisons in Myanmar they were terrible I mean disgusting doesn't even begin to describe it they were those awful sort of squat toilets I don't know if people will have encountered them but just terrible while I was in the box I used to have to knock on the door and ask to be taken to one of these and yeah they you know they were just indescribable frankly and you didn't have

a bed or blankets or pillow like just so we can because this is where my brain's going i'm trying to envision this box what else was in the room so the embassy had been able to get me like a little small almost like one of those camping mattresses that are only sort of about you know a few centimeters yeah they were able to get me one of those and the guards would bring that in in the evening and I just lay that on the floor. But one of the worst things was because I had to lie virtually right up against the chair, my sleep would always be disrupted because I'd brush against the chains hanging off the chair. And that was horrible. Like they made this horrible clanging sound. And it was the first time of a thought that I would have throughout that I felt like a convict

in Australia, like these clanking chains. All I could think of was, you know, early Australian history and the penal colony and Port Arthur and all that sort of stuff. Sean, it's remarkable how you speak about this experience and still joke. I know from many conversations that we've had that laughter is a coping mechanism for how we deal with immense trauma. What were you thinking in this time? How were you dealing with the day-to-day when one day rolls into another day? You have no idea how long you've been in a box, how long you're going to remain in there. How do you keep any sense of positivity or any sense of feeling as though that you're going to get out of this situation? So you know what, the main thing was not thinking,

trying not to think. And I think this is where the pacing comes in. And not only pacing, but counting, counting the steps. And I would sort of walk from one end of the wall, one wall to the other wall in the box, touch the wall, and then do exactly the same again, backwards, forwards, backwards, forwards. What distance was that? So it was eight steps. So I know it very, like I gathered them out all the time. So if I did 1,250 crossings of the box, I would have my 10,000 step daily healthy average. So I concentrated on that. And by simply just saying the numbers as I walked and paced, it was sort of, I think it was my version of meditation. I couldn't meditate. Most of my Myanmar colleagues, political prisoners

could do that and that gave them immense comfort. I'm too Western, I think. I'm too, you know, my mind is racing too much for that. So I found just counting and pacing a way to keep thoughts at bay because in some ways you didn't really want to think because there was nothing to think through. You know, this was not logical. You couldn't think of a strategy because everything was just so, you know, insane as the name of the prison tells me. You also have no control. And it's this sense of how do you think through a process when you have no control over it? And maybe the walking and the counting, that was the smallest thing in your life at that moment that you had control over. I think it's really insightful. Yeah, exactly. Because counting

allows you to measure and gives you control. Spoken like a true economist. Yeah, exactly. If you can't count it, it doesn't happen. Numbers are life. Yeah. What about the lighting situation? Because you said there's only a tiny little couple of millimeter slit of natural light. So were you in the dark? Did you have lights? What was that? So it was two extreme circumstances. So the lights were meant to be on all the time, 100% of the time, and mostly they were.

But because even by then, the first few days, the military had been mishandling the economy. So blackouts were happening all the time. So I was either in absolute deluge in like spotlights in the box or complete utter darkness, so dark you can't see your hand if you hold it in front of your face. So it was always those two extremes. And I'm not sure what was worst.

to be frank. How did you not go insane? I mean, I know that we've talked about counting, but surely, I mean, I just can't even comprehend how being in that space that you'd be able to come out of it and still have such a positive outlook on everything. So I think there was a couple of things. I knew that people would be helping me from outside, led by my wife, my daughter, my sister, my dad, you know, then all my friends and the Australian government and all that. So I knew be causing a fuss. And so I was thinking, okay, no, they'll all be there for me. But I also drew upon my reading. I'm a voracious reader. So I would try to remember things out of books. And then I would get down into particulars. I tried to remember every single US president in chronological

order, all 50 US states. But how do you confirm that you've got that right? You know, like that would drive me insane. I'll be like, I think I've got, I think I nailed it, but you can't confirm it was really hard and I made mistakes I remember just when I thought I'd nailed all the states I counted them up and I come to 51 and I thought which one was I missing and then I found out relatively late in the piece I thought wait a minute Omaha's not a state it's a city you're making me laugh recounting the situation and the thing is it's not a funny situation but I think hats off to you on a more serious note this torture chair that was in the middle of this room, was it ever used on you? Were you ever made to sit in it? Were you interrogated in that

chair? Totally. Yeah. So I was put in the chair all the time during interrogation. I wasn't chained up all the time. Sometimes they would chain me up, other times they wouldn't. Compared to my Myanmar colleagues, I was treated, it'd be wrong to say relatively well, but, you know, a little more kind of, again, as in more humanely. Yeah. So my Burmese friends, for instance, they were electrocuted and everything you know all the horrible things you can imagine of modern torture was done to them from fingernail pulling out to you know all the rest of it but for me it wasn't quite that bad I was punched a few times kicked a few times a guy sort of pretended to try and set fire to my hair which didn't work anyway but yeah so so and for me it was psychological

torture I suppose more than physical but um yeah but it was just awful being in that chair Were you made to be able to hear your friends being tortured as a form of torture? I think so. I'm not 100% certain whether it was deliberate, but I could hear prisoners being tortured at night, which was a horrible sound. Horrible at so many levels because, you know, you feel for the people being tortured, but then you start to think selfishly, you know, am I going to be next sort of thing. So that was pretty awful.

The only good thing about the sounds at night was that I could also hear the sounds of Yangon in revolt. and so I mentioned people would bang pots and pans and all that and so I could hear that too. Yeah, so at one level it told me that this regime was evil and, you know, one level seemingly all-powerful but it also told me that, no, the people are not putting up with it still. They're still resisting.

I guess before we move out of the box, what was the food situation? Were you made to starve? Were you given daily food? Did they treat you well? Was it nutritious? I guess I think I know that answer. The food was awful. There were times where I went without for fairly lengthy periods of time.

Yeah, the food was pretty awful. It used to arrive every day in three buckets. One bucket was very badly cooked rice that was either not cooked enough or cooked too much. And it had lots of stones in it, which was terrible for your teeth. And I broke my teeth a couple of times for that. Then there was this sort of very watery sort of bean soup, was probably about the healthiest thing.

Then there was a meat dish of something or other, but because it was a bucket, not a dish. But by the time it got to the prisoners, all the meat had been stripped away. So it was usually just bone and fat and gristle and this oily residue in the bucket. So the food was terrible. And it only later got better, not because of the jail food got better, but eventually the embassy was able to get food to me and food that my wife cooked here in Sydney, which was put in the diplomatic pouch and air freighted to Myanmar from Canberra.

But yeah, no, the food was as bad as anything else. That's so insane. What happened after these eight weeks of being in the box? You said that your wife and everyone around you in terms of family and support were campaigning within Australia. But what happened when you were released from this? What was the next stage? Yeah, so after about eight weeks, there was a sudden bustle and all these prison guards

came in and told me I was being taken deeper into the prison itself, to the regular prison wards. So out of the box and into that. And that was horrible. There were a number of days that were the worst. It's hard to nominate a specific one, but that one was a low because this insane prison was built in the 1890s. It's like a giant wagon wheel from the air, so it's a big circular sort of thing

with a giant tower in the middle, which the prison guards then could see every part of the prison. But it's very old, very run down, and very, very scary. So the guardhouse looks like something out of Lord of the Rings, like those sort of guardhouses, and just frowns down on people in front of it, you know, and just symbolises fear and cruelty and everything else. So it was awful even just standing at those gates, great big wooden door, so big that it was one of those doors that has another door inside it, a little small door, which I was taken through. But yeah,

that moment being taken out of the box and then into the main prison through this big guardhouse, yeah, really horrible moment. Did you lose any hope at that moment? Because I would assume that until this point you were thinking if I get out of this box it would probably be to be freed but yet you were taken out of the box and only pushed further inside a prison. That's right it was a particular low point because also at the same time I realised then that there was a legal proceeding then underway. I mean it's a joke to call it a legal proceeding but I knew that something then was taking place so yeah it was the twin effects of that of sitting outside standing outside this prison and being forced into it. But then also that knowledge that,

okay, this is actually going to take a while. So what were the main differences when you were moved to the main prison? Were you in a cell that you were sharing with people? Did you have more freedom in terms of being able to go outside or walk or exercise, eat more? So the major upside was then I could see people, other political prisoners and other prisoners actually more broadly. I was always in the cell on my own. I think the Myanmar military didn't want me with Burmese people because they worried I think the bad ideas might come from me to them. So I was always in a cell on my own, the whole time actually, but I was in a cell with other cells next to me. And so I saw many, many Burmese people. Again, as I mentioned earlier, young people who

would come out on the streets and they were so good, so inspiring. They saved my life. They looked after me. They were just incredible. So just a couple of hours, a few hours each day, We were allowed out of the cell so I could see them, talk to them and all that. So that was the one really positive thing. How did they save your life? All sorts of ways. I'm an aging professor from Sydney. I've got no life skills at all, zero.

I think now you have more life skills than many people. So they would help me with the food. So I mentioned how bad the food was. They used to do incredible things with smuggled spices and things like that. They'd turn those awful ingredients that I mentioned into something actually eatable. So yeah, even in that way, they got to work. When they heard I was coming, they got to work on the cell that they knew had been allocated for me and cleaned it up and all that.

Yeah, no, they were just incredible. They would remonstrate with guards. If guards were sort of acting roughly with me, they would remonstrate with them and say, no, you cannot do that and things like that. So yeah, incredible. At this point in time, considering you've been held in the box for eight weeks, you've moved into the main prison, did you understand why you were being imprisoned? Like, had they told you what the charges were that had been brought against you, as insane as they are?

No, it took a long time for the formal charges to be levied on me. But I knew where they were going. I knew they were going to call me a spy. And I was pretty sure they were going to use this law called the Official Secrets Act. So I was pretty sure that that's what it was, because they'd sort of all been all hints to that end. So yeah, so I knew roughly where it was going, which, of course, was itself a great cause of concern because being a spy has a penalty all the way up to the death penalty. And so I thought, gosh, what are they going to do? And, of course, you can't trust them at all.

As I found, they would just make stuff up. They would make up documents. They would put fake top secret stamps on documents that I'd had and things like that to make it look as if I'd been involved in espionage. I mean, at the end of the day, they can do whatever they want, can't they? That's right. And you're a few months deep now. Had you had any contact with lawyers, any embassies, your wife, heart?

Were you actually able to communicate with anyone to get an understanding of how they were going to help you, what the process was going to be like, or were you just left literally in the dark? A few weeks after I arrived in the main prison proper, I could be in contact with the embassy. But again, because of COVID, the military used that as an excuse to not allow any physical contact. In fact, I had no physical contact with the embassy or anyone from outside the prison all the way to the end.

But I could have phone meetings with the embassy about roughly every couple of weeks. And the embassy very kindly actually turned that over to my wife, who would have insisted upon it anyway, I isn't aware. So I was able to get in touch with her and my daughter Fu Wong and my dad and my sister and so on. So I was able to have short conversations. So every couple of weeks, about 20 minutes. So we had to be really quick and we had to sort of make up a code on the run because,

of course, we've not had time to do anything like that. So I used to rely upon her, you know, I would say something and it might be an allusion to a movie, things like that. And so I would try to get messages through obliquely like that, which works most of the times, but sometimes it didn't. And sometimes, you know, I got it completely wrong and be misunderstood. And it was around that time, too, that I'd first been introduced to a lawyer. But there's not a lot lawyers can do in Myanmar, to be honest,

because if you've been charged with anything, you will be found guilty. And in fact, lawyers, if they argue too strongly in the court, they will be charged. So, yeah, so I knew as soon as the charges were laid, the destination and the outcome was absolutely clear. When you mentioned that they were going to charge you as being a spy, you also mentioned another legal term that you thought that they were going to use against you.

What was that? And can you describe a little bit about what that term is? So it was the Official Secrets Act. So what they did was, there I was advising Aung San Suu Kyi and the government. And it meant, of course, that I had to write things and I would, you know, help them write speeches and help them in all sorts of economic documents. But they used that as the basis of suggesting that I had inappropriately taken this material and that I was passing it along to the Americans, to the Brits, the Australians and so on, and that all of this was just part of my espionage.

But then there was a little bizarre twist as well because they also charged me with breaking immigration law on the basis that if I was a spy, then my little visa. Your entry card. You didn't declare spy? What is your occupation? Spy. So you'd misled what your occupation was within the country. Absolutely.

Absolutely. So I ended up getting three years jail for that. For not declaring. For not declaring that I was a spy. So what ended up being the outcome in terms of the amount of time that you spent in prison and how it led up to your release? Can you talk us through that part and kind of what was the catalyst that allowed you to leave? So I ended up getting three years prison for the breach of the Official Secrets Act and another three years for the Immigration Act. But time

would come off the Official Secrets Act charge. So that meant effectively two years that that have been served. But I still had at least two years ahead of me in prison. And I'd given up complete hope, actually, by then. I was still mentally okay, but the thought of getting out was pretty much gone. So, you know, 600 days on in, I'd been charged, convicted, you know, put back into the prison. And we get to November 16, 2022, and it's my wedding anniversary. And it just so happens by coincidence, it's also one of my phone days with her. And I was talking to and both of us had reconciled to the fact that I was going to be in the prison for months more

and that I'd miss another Christmas. And, you know, I remember being quite despondent. I normally got a great lift out of the phone calls with her, but I remember on that one just feeling really despondent. So I come back to the cell, spend another night there, and then early the next morning, I'd just been doing my pacing. I'd just finished the 10,000 steps or near enough when a prison guard suddenly appeared and said,

Sean, good news, you're going home. And I was just so shocked. And I just said to him, look, please, please, please tell me you're not kidding. Please tell me who the 52nd president was. That's right. That's right. And by the way. But it was so shocking that even though it was the moment that I'd hoped for, for all

of that time, nearly two years, I didn't know what to do. I thought, I remember just sort of going to my bag and starting to pack something. And then they said, look, you've only got 10 minutes. And then I remembered Har had told me, John, don't bring anything home. Above all, don't leave your clothes there and all that. And so I suddenly remembered that and I just thought, okay, that's it, forget it,

and just sort of walked out with virtually nothing. Why did Har say don't bring anything home? Well, so it's a bit of a thing actually because I'd spoken to my Burmese friends about it as well. And I think this is right throughout Asia. The clothes would be regarded as tainted in some way. Like it's almost like a little bit superstitious, but also practical as well

Because disease and all that goes around the prison really, really quickly. And these clothes were pretty dirty and terrible by then, pretty raggedy. So yeah, there wasn't much point bringing them home. Although I did want to bring home, because the prison used to, after you're convicted, you become a convicted prisoner, you have to wear this blue outfit, which is like a bright blue shirt and a blue lonji, which is sort of like a sarong that men wear in Myanmar. And I wanted to bring that home.

And I actually had stuffed it into a bag as I'm leaving the cell and the prison guard said, no, no, no, no, prison property. So I quickly returned it because I thought, gee, I don't want a theft charge on top of it. That's the last thing you want to get in trouble for. But surely, I mean, you tell me, surely you didn't want to take a keepsake from such a horrific time. No, but for some reason I did want this

because there was a very famous Myanmar prisoner who always wore a blue shirt ever after. This is going back decades. But for the rest of his life wore this blue shirt in sort of honour, in honour of his colleagues and so on. And I remember thinking, gee, I want to grab that so I can wear it from time to time. But, yeah, probably best that I didn't get it.

What was it like in terms of being in prison? Because when you're in such a complicated prison that has political prisoners but also has people who are actual criminals and you're all being meshed together, is that a frightening place to be when you're not sure who it is that you can be around versus someone who's actually quite dangerous? In the abstract it is and as I think about it now it sounds terrifying because I was with literally I was with murderers I was with narcotics traffickers and so on and yeah some of them you know were not normally the people I hang out with back here in

Sydney but funnily enough I got on really well with them all and in particular the narcotics traffickers there was a bunch of them from Taiwan and I remember you know this may sound very naive and so on but these guys were very young they're in their early 20s they seemed to me incredibly naive they reminded me what one in particular reminded me of my nephew Timothy in fact to the extent I actually called him Tim and everyone else in the prison called him Tim but they're really nice young guys I could only think of them as probably being you know again this maybe I'm naive in this but they seem to me to be victims of of things more than anything else so yeah it was you know I would never have ever guessed that these were the people I would be living with but

yeah we got on well and Sean you're the only prisoner I've ever spoken to in close confines is it like the movies because we're all led to believe that inside of a prison you pick your gang that's your gang there are constant gang wars stabbings sexual assaults beatings was it like that in the prison like I know that you were safe quote unquote from that but was that actually happening? Not to my knowledge. And I think here the issue is that most of the prisoners overwhelmingly, so insane prison at the peak of all of this when I was there was probably got to about 15,000 prisoners in this jail. And let's say 13,000 of them would have been political. So they all looked out for each other and they were young and idealistic. Some were students,

et cetera. So there wasn't that sort of hardcore element. So actually I saw nothing like that. The only thing I thought that sort of accorded with the cliche of a prison was that people like to lift weights. So I remember thinking, wow, this is like every prison movie I've ever seen. But the other stuff, yeah, I didn't see it, but I want to be careful here just to, you know, it could have been taking place and I just didn't see it. But for the most part, people were very gentle and compassionate with each other. There was an incredible sense of solidarity. There was also a women's part of the prison as well. And so I would see them all the time, actually, when I was being moved around for the phone calls and other things. And we'd all

sort of, you know, shout out to each other and give high fives and stick three fingers up out of the Hunger Games thing, which was like the symbol for, yeah, resistance against the military. So there's immense solidarity amongst the prisoners. What was it that changed? Because you were supposed to spend this extra time and spend two more years in prison. What was it that was the catalyst that got you free? So the Trigar was a religious holiday. So in Myanmar, there's a bit of a tradition of having amnesties on religious holidays and national events. So mine was one of those. But it was a relatively obscure Buddhist holiday, which I didn't even know was about to take place. So they used that as the reason to give me an amnesty and many other

prisoners too. The real reason, of course, wasn't that. It was the international pressure. So the pressure had been piling on the regime. And in this context, you know, the Australian government was great. The US government was fantastic. Singaporean, the Vietnamese government, whole range of players all around the world, just putting immense pressure on the regime. So I think by then they just thought, oh, just get him out. Just, you know, turn him loose. We've had enough. Yep. You just mentioned the women prison, which were, you know, next door.

Had you had contact with Aung San Suu Kyi at this time? Did you know her situation? Was she being kept well. You said that the military want her gone. Was there an aspect where you thought they're going to kill her? Yeah. So the first six months I didn't see Suu Kyi, but once the trial began, because I was charged alongside her. So basically I'm the spy and she's my agent was the charge as well as other government ministers. So we're all put on trial together. So I would see her at the trial once a day for a week for a full year. And we'd have a little bit of time at the start of each trial day to have a chat. And she was just fantastic. She was incredibly strong. And in fact, that great spirit that had got her through the 90s, the early 2000s, all that was

back. She was amazing. She was very concerned always to keep my spirits up and everyone else's. But she was also incredibly polite to the people who were mishandling the police, the prison guards and all the rest of it. And she wasn't kept in very good conditions. And so I worried, because I think your question is a really important one and a good one. I think they do want to still be rid of her. I still think they're not foolish enough to, you know, just outright murder her, assassinate her. But through ill treatment you can more or less amount to the same thing

because, you know, she's 77 now. She has a number of ailments. She gets through them and, again, you know, she's very strong and all the rest of it. But, yeah, I worry a lot about they are sort of planning her demise. gosh it's so it's unbelievable to think what happens within other countries within other political systems because you just expect that the people who are governing are taking care because that's what we've been brought up and led to believe and also when there's not this

airtime across these issues within australia i know that we say like it was during a time of covid and that there were so many other things to take front and center press within australia But you do question how can this go on and it gets such little airtime within our mainstream media. Let's talk about your beautiful wife, Ha, who by all accounts went above and beyond in the fight for your release. What was she doing behind the scenes in that time to help you get out? She was just a whirlwind of activity. So sort of two categories of activity.

One is to support me, keep me alive. So she's constantly baking. She's a great baker. so she would bake stuff seal it in one of those vacuum seal bags send it down to Canberra into the diplomatic pouch over to Myanmar so she did all that and anything that I wanted and by that time too I was allowed to have books so she kept up this this train of books running through which as much as the food really kept me alive so she was doing that a lot of the time and then she's agitating though to governments around the world so she's writing letters phone calls to the prime

minister, to the foreign minister, to the prime minister of Vietnam, to the leader of Cambodia. She's in touch with Prince Charles as he was then. She's in touch with leading American politicians just constantly, 24-7, just pushing, pushing, pushing. And of course, she's still got a job to do as well. So she's teaching at Macquarie Uni while this is going on and looking after our daughter, Fu Wong, although Fu Wong really rose to the occasion well. And so she was looking after a mum and everyone else as well. But, yeah, no, just an extraordinary amount of activity going on. Sean, you've written this book all around your experience.

What has been the reaction from the Myanmar military and from the government about you being so open and talking about your experience? Well, they were extremely upset. Can you imagine? I imagine. Lo and behold. The poor things.

Yeah, I don't know why they wouldn't have expected me. But again, this sort of, I think, illustrates their mindset, right, that they don't think about ordinary citizens having a say. And so I think they were genuinely taken aback when I got back to Australia and said, look, conditions were awful. The situation was terrible. So they were terribly upset and they end up reversing my pardon. So, you know, so technically I'm a felon at large.

So you can't go back to the country because you'll be arrested? Certainly couldn't go back to Myanmar at all. I can't even fly over. I've got to be very careful about a whole range of things, you know, just in case I'd end up back there. Yeah, no, I mean, just extraordinary. And then when, you know, with the book out and interviews like this, they're going to be that extra upset.

Oh, my God, are they going to come for us now? No, does it not frighten you, though? Because I guess a country like this, it revolves on compliance. And I think for a long time there was this expectation of compliance from its citizens and now people are speaking out against, but it does seem to be coming to them as a shock. So do you not fear what that could mean for you within Australia? Every so often.

I think part of the thing that protects me, I mean, apart from just the law and so on and, you know, the very obvious demonstration of support from the Australian government and so on, but also the Burmese community here in Australia who hate the military and I think would be, you know, would move with great alacrity if they thought that there was any sort of move to harm me or anything like that. So, you know, I feel safe here, but it is something to think about. I guess for all of us as Australians, which outside of this, I've had many thoughts since coming back to Australia, but above all, it's just the idea that this country is a paradise. I mean, I know we have our problems, but Har and I spent the weekend over at Manly yesterday. It was a beautiful day and just, you know, you wander around Sydney and it's just so extraordinarily beautiful. And the life, you know, again, we know we have problems and inequalities and all the

rest of it. But life here was incredibly good. So that's the sort of thing that, you know, keeps you on an even keel and keeps those darker thoughts at bay. And tell us how you wrote your book. So I wrote it quite quickly. So as an academic, I'm usually, I'm used to writing things, but, you know, it always takes ages and everything is footnoted

and all the rest of it. But this one was really quite quick. One of the main reasons for was that probably about half the book I memorized in the prison and I would recite it to myself as I'm pacing up and down. So, again, this is part of the way that I'm coping. and surviving in the prison, thinking about other things but including about the book.

So in writing the book, part of the process was just simply to take my mind back to where I was in the prison and just to remember and almost like freedom, a stream of consciousness writing where the pen almost did the writing for me and I was just a medium for that. Yeah, it was literally written in your mind, that's it, and you memorised it and then regurgitated it. What was the first thing you did when you got back?

Like the first thing you ate, the first thing that you had been thinking about that whole time, like when my feet get onto Australian soil, this is what I'm going to do. So I had two things like that that I really wanted. I wanted a glass of red wine and I wanted some ice cream. So those two things were uppermost in my mind. But returning to Australia was, I mean, it was great at so many levels, of course, but the only flight they could get for me, DFAT,

was back to Melbourne. But they wanted to get me back as quickly as possible. So even though I live in Sydney, they said, Sean, look, there's a seat left back to Melbourne. We'll get you back there and then we'll take you up to Sydney. So the great thing about that was the arrive in Melbourne and that was great and Har had flown down to Melbourne to meet me and all that. But within half an hour of arriving in Melbourne, we were then escorted to the Prime Minister's plane and taken back up to Sydney. And so that was incredible because here we are on this beautiful, wonderful private jet this Falcon business jet. In less than 24 hours earlier, I'd still been in my concrete cell in Myanmar. It's unbelievable, isn't it? So yeah, within one day, I go from this dank, dark dungeon

onto a private jet. It was just crazy. But even psychologically, how do you reckon with that? And it makes me ask, you're so, and I know I said it earlier, you're so positive in how you talk about it. You seem to have compartmentalised this truly traumatic period of life. What long-term impacts has this had on you? So I think all of that's still to be revealed, in a sense. In fact, I think the phrase you used is right. I think it's lifelong. The only negative things I have is that I often dream about it. I have a recurring dream that I'm still in the prison and I can't get out. In fact, the particular version of the dream is that I've got some sort of form that authorises my freedom and there's something wrong with the form. It's not signed properly. There's a wrong

stamp on it or something like that. So I have that. But other than that, yeah, I think compartmentalising is also important. Also, some of my friends would often tell me, Sean, you know, your positivity is just because you're not paying attention. That might be part of it as well. Have you spoken to someone about your experience? Like do you go and see a therapist?

Is something like that provided for you from a PTSD perspective after you've been through something so horrific? I would expect that almost like the government would provide it for you. They did. So I had four meetings with a psych. That's as many as you have off the back of The Bachelor. So that seems like not enough. Indeed.

So it was good, actually. It was quite good. And she was very helpful at being able to identify anxieties that I had and where they came from and all of that. So it was good. I haven't felt the need to do that again. But having said that, you do get flashbacks every now and then and odd little incidents will make you recall something in the prison.

So it'll suddenly come back to you. But yeah, for the most part, I've been really busy just writing the book and all of that and just enjoying life as well. So yeah, so, so far I've managed to keep it at bay, but you know, I do understand that there'll be times where it will come back. Totally. Sean, when you were in the depths of your despair and your lowest point, no hope, no communication with the outside, horrific living conditions, the thought of being tortured at your fingertips, did you ever consider taking your life? I did. Yeah. So there were a couple of really low points, I suppose, that there was a time in the

box where I've been there probably about a month and so you're not in a good place psychologically anyway and there's still and there doesn't seem to be an end and I'm hearing the torturing and all that and I did think about that this is going to sound strange there were just practical considerations that made it not possible I remember thinking okay well how would I do this because again you know there were no features of the box it was just concrete floor and all that but there was a light fitting at the top and I remember thinking you know what if I had a belt I could sort of hang myself off this light fitting. But because I'm fairly short, so I'm only just over 5'4", and this light was probably, you know, 10 foot in the air.

Like logistically, I can't get it. Logistically, I wouldn't have even been able to get to it anyway. Wow. And then there was a sort of, again, odd macabre little moment just on the same level when one of the prison guards took the belt away after a long time. They finally took the belt away. And it was actually the superintendent of the prison. And he said, oh, Sean, better take this from you because you might hang yourself. And that was sort of, you know, just a weird moment.

Do you think there's a part that they, like there's a part of them that leaves things like belts? Like you obviously were left with a belt for a while. Do you think they leave them with you with the intention that maybe you will do it, like no skin off their back if you do? I'm not sure. It's an interesting one, that one, because I was treated incredibly badly the whole time

but they were also very anxious that I didn't die on them because I think they would be worried about if I died, say of natural causes or COVID. it. So I got COVID five times. And the conditions were just awful. And, you know, again, at that point, I was 57, 58. Guys my age dropped out of heart attacks all the time. I mean, and this sort of stressful, incredibly unhealthy environment. So I worried about dying in the prison. And I think they worried about me dying as well and that they get the blame. But it was a bit of a mix in a way, right? Because they're certainly not treating me well and they're setting up all the circumstances

that could easily allow you to get illnesses, have accidents, all that sort of stuff. But simultaneously I think the politics of that would have been quite bad. So in the middle of all this bad food, this ill treatment, all the rest of it, they would often come around and take my pulse. Like moments of caring. Yeah, moments of seeming care. But, again, I don't want to give them too much credit

because I think it was really just natural. No, it's only just to keep you alive, to keep you in heinous conditions. That's right, yeah, yeah, and just to make sure, yeah, I didn't just drop dead on them. But also those moments of seeming compassion can be even more psychologically traumatic because it makes you empathize with the people who are doing these things to you and you start to humanize them as well. It's such an unfair, I don't want to use a better word, but like a complete head fuck

that you have to try and navigate around this where you're like, this is how I'm being treated, but also I guess they need to keep me alive. So there's some sort of level of care. You're absolutely right. And weird dynamics, emotional weird dynamics. And one of the things I had to guard against was being too thankful for gestures or concessions that were just what a human being should expect from another human being. But you would be very grateful to it.

And yeah, I had to consciously not to become too emotionally dependent on particular individuals or try to please. I think my nature is often to try and do that and avoid conflict and blah, blah, blah. So I would actually actively have to avoid doing that. But it's all relative, right? like you're being grateful because something is given to you in a place and under conditions where it is not the everyday and it's not a given and you don't have those luxuries so of course you're going to feel more grateful when you're given an extra scoop of beans or an extra scoop of

rice even though of course it's basic human rights it's you adapt it's adaptation it's a necessity to survival exactly before we wrap up do you have any communication or are you following along with your friends that you left behind in the prison these people that saved your life in the prison because I imagine I imagine I would grapple with that leaving behind when you're in a situation and you know how horrific it is and you know these people have helped you and you know that they are never going to have an out do you remove yourself from that situation to save your own sanity or do you want to stay connected because you feel like you owe them something very much the latter so and this is probably the area of greatest distress in two ways one is I worry for

them. They're incredibly vulnerable. I worry that they could be harmed by things that I do because the regime again is not backward in sort of threatening. But what is so frustrating is that I can't even reach out to them. I can't contact them. I have so many friends who I haven't seen now for about three years, people who I've worked with and all that. And I can't even click like on Facebook. So I follow everyone. I try and do what I can to keep people safe and help people who I know are you know in in a situation that that could use my help but for people inside I try to observe what's going on but I have to be so careful that I don't contact them I don't do anything because it could endanger them endanger them got you and I I think I read one of your

friends was murdered not long after you left that's right so the probably the single most distressing moment was a guy called Kin Mong Shui but he used to be known to me as as Jacob He looked after me a lot, but he was a very high-spirited, wonderful man who just didn't put up with anything. So I mentioned, you know, how other prisoners would stick up for me, but above all was Kim Mong-choy.

And the prison guards hated him for that. They also feared him. And so they concocted a situation. This is about a month after I'd left the prison, where a fight had developed in the prison and he'd gone there to break them up. And that was very him. That was very characteristic.

And these two guys, it was a fake fight. They then turned on him, started beating him, and then other prison guards arrived and started beating him and kicked him to death. So he lingered on overnight and then died the next day. So obviously, you know, partly writing the book was to honour people like him, but it sort of shows you the extent to which they'll go. So sorry.

I'm sorry. It must be incredibly difficult to see this from the sidelines now and not be able to do anything to help. I'm so sorry for your loss. Well, incredibly difficult as well to have this internal monologue that you don't want to be an internal monologue. Look, you want to put it out to the world because you want to know. It's an internal battle, I guess.

You want the world to know what is happening in hopes that there will be some change implemented. But having said that, the effects of having the world know could directly affect your friends that you've left in the prison. So it's like, what is the better of two evils? Absolutely. I have an immense responsibility to tell their story, to tell the truth. But what do you do in a situation where in doing that, that may endanger the people? So one of the things I was very clear about in the prison

with my other political prisoners was that I told them I was going to write a book and I would tell the story. And I said, look, I need your permission to do that. And to a person, and again this goes to their courage and all that, to a person they said, you must tell the story, Sean. We don't care if this blows back on us, that the bigger issue is to get the story out. Wow.

Yeah. What is happening now in Myanmar? So the military just go on. They're getting more and more desperate. it. So the opposition, the democratic opposition, is starting to win military battles now. So it's not even just simply protesting and all of that. So the military don't even have complete control over the country now. In fact, they may be up to about 40% of the country not under the military control. Just last week, there were some big defeats of the military there. Some of their

friends, like China, seem to be giving up on them, on the military. Yeah, so the junta is on the back foot. But unfortunately, that just means that they're extra savage as well. More aggressive. Yeah, more aggressive, more killings. They're using aeroplanes, et cetera, to bomb villages, bomb displaced people's camps and all sorts of things. So, yeah, a really desperate time at the moment. What can be done in terms of, I mean, we hear, like we said earlier, there's so many conversations around war and around how people can help,

but what can people do in this instance? So I think the major thing that countries like Australia can do and people can therefore help at getting our policymakers to do is to restrict the junta's resources. Australia hasn't yet imposed financial sanctions on Myanmar to the extent that America has done and Britain has done and countries like that now I'd like to see us do that because I think the Myanmar's military is absolutely desperate for foreign exchange to buy military equipment essentially so I think cutting that off is one sort of practical thing we can do I don't exaggerate

how much we can do you know there's not a lot to be honest but I think that that would be important and likewise I think then just supporting the Burmese people who have either fled the country but people inside as well. So that sort of humanitarian assistance channeled through the movement of people who were forced to flee and so on, plus that sort of financial sanctioning. I think those are two sort of practical ways in which we can support people in Burma. Sean, your story is truly fascinating and we can't thank you enough for coming and sharing your story today because it must be really, really hard for you to do for reasons we discussed. Your book, An Unlikely Prisoner, has just been released. So congratulations on that. And if anybody wants

to find out more about Sean's incredible story, please go and get that book anywhere you can, literally anywhere you can buy a book. You're doing a lot of interviews at the moment. You're on the ABC. You're really putting yourself out there in hopes of some change. And I know that that change is very optimistic, but you're doing it nonetheless.

So thank you so much for your time today. Thank you. It's been a real pleasure. We'll be right back.