[Theguardian] Aung San Suu Kyi has been sentenced to four years in prison for incitement and breaking Covid restrictions – the first verdict to be handed down to Myanmar’s ousted leader since the junta seized power in February.
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The 76-year-old has been accused of a series of offences – from unlawful possession of walkie-talkies to breaches of the Official Secrets Act – that could amount to decades-long prison sentences. Her lawyer has previously described the cases as “absurd”.
The incitement case reportedly centred on a statement, published online following the February coup, which had urged international organisations not to cooperate with the junta. The second case alleged that she had broken Covid rules while campaigning beore last year’s election.
The former president Win Myint was sentenced to four years on the same charges. Myo Aung, the former mayor of Naypyitaw, was sentenced to two years for incitement.
Little is known about the proceedings in any of the legal cases. Aung San Suu Kyi has been tried in a closed court, with no access for observers, and her lawyer has been prevented from speaking to journalists.
Charles Santiago, the chair of the group Asean Parliamentarians for Human Rights, said Monday’s ruling was “a travesty of justice” that demonstrated the junta’s contempt for regional efforts to find a resolution to the country’s crisis.
“No one is fooled by today’s sentencing,” he said in a statement. “Since the day of the coup, it’s been clear that the charges against Aung San Suu Kyi, and the dozens of other detained MPs, have been nothing more than an excuse by the junta to justify their illegal power grab. Despite this, most recent attempt to demonstrate their power, the Myanmar people continue to risk their lives every day to show that they completely reject this military,” Santiago added.
Monday’s sentencing was first reported by the BBC and Agence France-Presse.
Analysts have described the charges against the ousted leader, which have continued to grow in number since February, as a transparent attempt to remove her as a political threat. Her National League for Democracy party won a thumping victory in last year’s election but the military refused to accept the result.
Aung San Suu Kyi, who previously spent a total of 15 years in detention campaigning against the military, could be held by the junta for the rest of her life if found guilty on all charges.
Ming Yu Hah, Amnesty International’s deputy regional director for campaigns, said the sentences handed down to her were “the latest example of the military’s determination to eliminate all opposition and suffocate freedoms in Myanmar”.
According to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, she is one of more than 10,600 people to have been arrested by the junta since February, as it has sought to crush any form of opposition. At least 1,303 have been killed.
“As violence escalates, displacing tens of thousands of people and setting up a humanitarian crisis in the middle of an ongoing pandemic, the situation in Myanmar today is alarming in the extreme. Without a decisive, unified and swift international response this can and will get worse,” said Ming Yu Hah.
Almost one year on since the coup, the military has struggled to impose order. The economy is failing, health and education systems have collapsed, poverty rates have soared and conflict has escalated. Last month, the Special Advisory Council for Myanmar, which includes experts such as Yanghee Lee, the former UN special rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar, warned military offences were cutting off communities’ food and medical supplies, forcing people to the brink of starvation.
The junta faces both a peaceful resistance movement and an armed opposition formed of people’s defence forces allied with various ethnic armed groups. In September, the National Unity Government, a shadow government formed by elected officials, declared a “defensive war” against the junta, calling for civilian armed groups to target the military and its assets.
Joshua Kurlantzick, senior fellow for south-east Asia at the Council on Foreign Relations, said that the NUG, which is seeking international recognition, is making headway in securing major meetings with officials internationally. “The continued success of the people’s defence forces may also have some impact on how other governments view the situation in Myanmar,” he said, in comments given prior to Monday’s verdict.
Aung San Suu Kyi has been held at an unknown location since February, and it is not known if she will serve her sentence in prison or under house arrest. A special envoy from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, which has led diplomatic efforts to solve the crisis, has been refused permission to meet with her. In response, the bloc took the unusually tough step of barring the junta chief from its meetings.
Richard Horsey, the International Crisis Group’s sernior adviser on Myanmar, said that despite such action, Asean appeared to lack the leverage to force the junta to change course. While other countries have supported the Asean approach “this has been mostly a way of outsourcing the problem to Asean rather than any conviction that the regional bloc could make progress,” he added, in comments prior to Monday’s sentencing.
“Myanmar needs to be a much higher diplomatic priority for the major powers and the UN.”
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