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John Mair
Bangkok: The legal team of Myanmar’s Aung San Suu Kyi planned to meet the detained former leader this weekend after she was transferred to house arrest in the capital by the military-backed government, a representative said on Friday.
Nobel laureate Suu Kyi has been detained since the military ousted her civilian government in a coup in February 2021. The coup triggered a deadly civil war that has engulfed much of the impoverished South-East Asian nation, and her whereabouts had been unclear.
“Daw Aung San Suu Kyi is currently still in [Myanmar’s capital] Naypyidaw,” a member of her legal team told Reuters, using an honorific for the veteran politician, and confirming that she had been moved to house arrest on Thursday night.
On Thursday, state media reported she would be moved to house arrest, but did not say where. It also broadcast a photograph of Suu Kyi, seated on a wooden bench with two uniformed personnel, although it is unclear when or where it was taken.
Suu Kyi’s legal team planned to meet the 80-year-old on Sunday to discuss her position and bring her some supplies.
“The situation has shifted. I think it will no longer be just a standard prison visit, but rather a meeting where the legal team will go and discuss matters with her,” the legal representative said.
Suu Kyi’s son, Kim Aris, had earlier said the state media announcement did little to dispel fears about her condition or even confirm that she was still alive.
“I still do not know where my mother is. I do not know how she is,” he said.
Suu Kyi has not been seen publicly since the Myanmar army seized power from her elected government on February 1, 2021. The last official photo of her was released on May 24, 2021, showing her in court.
In December, Aris told Reuters he had not heard from his mother in years, receiving only sporadic, secondhand details about health issues, including heart, bone and gum problems, since her detention.
After a marathon run of secret trials following the coup, Suu Kyi was sentenced to 33 years after she was convicted of charges ranging from corruption and inciting election fraud to violating state secrecy rules. Her allies maintain the charges were politically motivated and aimed at sidelining her.
The sentence was later reduced to 27 years, and then by a sixth in a Myanmar New Year amnesty on April 17 that freed her ally and co-defendant Win Myint, the former president.
On Thursday, her sentence was reduced by a further one-sixth as part of a wider amnesty of prisoners in Myanmar’s jails, before the move to house arrest was announced.
Myanmar’s junta chief-turned-president Min Aung Hlaing, who led the coup, has faced persistent international pressure to release political detainees since a recent election, including from ASEAN. He is seeking to re-engage with the South-East Asian bloc after it banned Myanmar from its summits as a result of the coup.
Suu Kyi, the daughter of the country’s independence hero General Aung San, was held under house arrest for a total of 15 years under a previous junta at her family residence on Yangon’s Inya Lake, where she famously gave impassioned speeches to crowds of supporters over the metal gates of the property.
Her tough stand against military rule in Myanmar turned her into a symbol of nonviolent struggle for democracy, and won her the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize.
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