Myanmar's Aung San Suu Kyi, Who Endured 15 Years of House Arrest, Is Placed Under House Arrest Again

[The Financial News] Aung San Suu Kyi, a symbol of Myanmar's pro-democracy movement who previously spent 15 years under house arrest by the military, is set to be placed under house arrest again at the age of 80.
On the 17th local time, foreign media including The New York Times (NYT) reported, citing a Myanmar military official, that the former Myanmar state counselor, who is currently imprisoned, will soon be transferred to house arrest.
The move is believed to be part of a special amnesty by the coup regime, which has transformed itself into a civilian government this month. Min Aung Hlaing, the former commander-in-chief of the Myanmar military who led the 2021 coup and was elected Myanmar president on the 3rd, had earlier signaled a large-scale pardon to mark his first week in office. On the 17th, he approved pardons for 4,335 prisoners. Myanmar typically grants amnesties every year in January for Independence Day and in April for the New Year.
Under the pardon, prisoners sentenced to death had their terms reduced to life imprisonment, and life sentences were reduced to 40 years in prison. For prison terms of less than 40 years, one-sixth of the sentence is reduced. As a result, Suu Kyi, who had been sentenced to a total of 27 years, had 4 years and 6 months cut from her term, bringing it down to 22 years and 6 months.
According to Myanmar Radio and Television, former Myanmar President Win Myint, who had remained loyal to Suu Kyi, was released from prison under the pardon. He was arrested with Suu Kyi on Feb. 1, 2021, and was initially sentenced to 12 years in prison before the term was reduced to eight years in 2023.
After ruling Myanmar as a military dictatorship for about 53 years, the junta handed over power in 2015 after recognizing the victory of the National League for Democracy (NLD), led by Suu Kyi, in the general election. Suu Kyi had already endured about 15 years of house arrest by the military, with periods of detention and release repeated from 1989 to 2010.
The NLD won a landslide victory in the November 2020 general election and succeeded in forming a single-party government. In response, the Myanmar military, led by Hlaing, staged a coup in February 2021 and overthrew the government. The military arrested Suu Kyi and Win Myint at the time, then appointed Vice President Myint Swe as acting president and took control of state affairs. Myint Swe died in August last year, leaving the Myanmar presidency vacant again. Hlaing then ran for president after retirement, mindful of the constitution's ban on holding both the presidency and the top military post at the same time, and was elected this month to a five-year term by pro-military forces in parliament.
Myanmar has remained in a civil war since the 2021 coup. According to the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED), a U.S.-based nonprofit research group, as many as 90,000 people are estimated to have died in the civil war so far.




pjw@fnnews.com Park Jong-won Reporter