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YANGON, Myanmar (AFP) — One of many Myanmar army’s first strikes throughout its coup final yr was to arrest the nation’s democracy figurehead Aung San Suu Kyi, who has spent a long time battling army rule.
The Nobel laureate, 76, has been stored out of the general public eye ever since because the junta seeks to crush resistance to its putsch.
AFP takes a take a look at what we learn about Suu Kyi’s detention.
– The place is she? –
Her actual location is unknown. The junta has stored her beneath home arrest at an undisclosed location within the military-built capital Naypyidaw.
She leaves solely to attend hearings for her trial in a particular court docket, which journalists are barred from attending.
Pictures of the trial have appeared simply as soon as, in state-media handouts final yr, which confirmed Suu Kyi sitting behind a low barrier in a plain courtroom alongside co-defendant and ousted former president Win Myint.
– What are her situations like? –
The junta has stayed tight-lipped about Suu Kyi’s dwelling situations. It has mentioned she resides with round 10 home workers and that she is permitted to learn and watch the information from state-backed media.
The junta has rebuffed requests by overseas diplomats to fulfill Suu Kyi whereas she is on trial.
Her present isolation is a far cry from the years she spent beneath home arrest throughout the earlier junta, when she lived at her household’s colonial-era lakeside mansion in Yangon and recurrently gave speeches to crowds on different facet of her backyard fence.
Suu Kyi does have her canine Taichido — gifted to her in 2010 by her UK-born youngest son as he made a uncommon go to to Myanmar, in line with native media — for firm.
– Well being considerations –
The 76-year-old has skipped a number of trial hearings, resulting in considerations over her well being as she fights a number of trials.
She missed a listening to in September because of sickness, and in October, her lawyer mentioned her well being had suffered from her frequent appearances earlier than the junta-run court docket.
Final yr, as Covid circumstances spiked throughout Myanmar, the junta introduced she had been totally vaccinated, with out specifying which dose she had been given.
In March she was briefly quarantined after Covid was detected amongst her workers and skipped a number of trial hearings.
– What’s she on trial for? –
Suu Kyi faces a slew of corruption expenses and can also be on trial for breaching Myanmar’s official secrets and techniques act and for electoral fraud throughout 2020 polls her occasion gained in a landslide.
She has already been discovered responsible and sentenced for illegally importing and possessing walkie talkies, incitement towards the army and flouting Covid-19 restrictions.
The junta has mentioned she’s going to serve her jail time period beneath home arrest till her trials are accomplished.
– Is she nonetheless fashionable? –
Whereas her picture has been tarnished within the West over her dealing with of the Rohingya disaster, Suu Kyi stays massively fashionable in Myanmar.
In June final yr supporters throughout the nation wore flowers of their hair — lengthy a signature Suu Kyi look — to mark her 76th birthday.
The junta has gone after her Nationwide League for Democracy occasion — which trounced a military-backed occasion in 2020 elections — with a number of members jailed or in hiding.
Its election fee is at the moment investigating the occasion for alleged elctoral fraud and has threatened to droop it.
– Will the junta free her? –
The costs towards Suu Kyi –- which rights teams and critics of the army say are concocted –- might see her jailed for greater than 150 years.
However the lengthy cost sheet can also be a manner of “creating elasticity and leeway” whereas the junta decides what to do with Suu Kyi because it battles pro-democracy fighters, mentioned analyst Soe Myint Aung.
After years beneath home arrest the army granted her freedom in 2010, simply days after elections that her occasion boycotted however which introduced a nominally civilian authorities to energy.
It’s unlikely she can be launched earlier than elections the junta has mentioned will maintain by August 2023 “except she’s going to function an antidote to the favored revolutionary drive or go together with the military-proposed roadmap,” the analyst added.
© Agence France-Presse
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