The country’s military authorities have each handed out a one-year prison sentence to the former British ambassador to Myanmar and her husband.
A former political prisoner named Htein Lin and Vicky Bowman was accused of violating immigration regulations.
The couple was detained last week at their Yangon residence.
The case is likely to be about wider political concerns than immigration offenses, for which foreigners are rarely prosecuted in Myanmar.
Ms Bowman, a fluent Burmese speaker, is a well-known member of Myanmar’s small international community.
She first served in what was then called Burma in 1990 as a junior diplomat and returned as ambassador from 2002-2006. She now runs the Myanmar Centre for Responsible Business (MCRB), based in Yangon, which said it was “shocked” by the sentences.
In its statement, it added that Ms Bowman had “dedicated many years of her life to strengthening social and economic development in Myanmar”.
“We hope it will be possible for her to be reunited with her family in the UK soon,” it said.
Ms Bowman and her husband were detained when they returned to the city from a home they have in Shan State. Military authorities charged them both with failing to register her as living at a different address.
Htein Lin is a prominent artist and former political prisoner who was a member of the All Burma Student’s Democratic Front, an armed resistance group that was formed after the popular student-led uprisings against the military junta in 1988.
The couple got married and moved to London before returning to Yangon in 2013.
The pair’s arrest came as the UK recently announced sanctions against the military authorities in Myanmar – coinciding with the fifth anniversary of its deadly crackdown on Rohingya Muslims in the country. The onslaught in 2017 left more than 6,000 people dead, and displaced hundreds of thousands in just the first few months, with most of them fleeing across the border into Bangladesh.
Myanmar’s military regime has been accused of widespread violations of human rights.
Early in August, generals extended their emergency rule until 2023, with the country riven by internal fighting.
The junta seized power last year after overthrowing Aung Sung Suu Kyi’s democratically-elected government.
After last year’s coup, Ms Bowman chose to stay in Myanmar and appears to have been careful to avoid any public comment which might provoke the military government.