Myanmar’s deposed leader Aung San Suu Kyi has been sentenced to four years in prison by a Myanmar court.
Aung San Suu Kyi was found guilty of inciting and violating COVID-19 guidelines, a spokesman for Myanmar’s military said the AFP news agency on Monday.
According to Zaw Min Tun, she was sentenced to two years in prison for each of the two offences.
Former President Win Myint was sentenced to four years in prison on the same accusations, he added, adding that the two would not be sent to prison until later.
“They will face other charges from the places where they are staying now” in the capital Naypyidaw, he said, without giving further details.
The verdict on Monday is the first of a dozen cases brought against the 76-year-old by the military since it toppled her civilian administration in a coup on February 1. The military has prevented Aung San Suu Kyi’s counsel from speaking with the media or the general public during her trial in Naypyidaw.
Other charges levelled against the Nobel Peace Prize winner include several counts of corruption, violations of a state secrets statute, and violations of a telecoms legislation, all of which carry a possible term of over a century in jail.
Her supporters claim the charges are unfounded and are being brought against her to ruin her political career and entangle her in legal proceedings while the military consolidates power.
Aung San Suu Kyi has denied all of the allegations.
Aung San Suu Kyi, the daughter of a hero of Myanmar’s freedom from British colonialism, spent years under house imprisonment under a previous military regime.
She was released from prison in 2010 and went on to lead the National League for Democracy (NLD) to a landslide win in the 2015 election.
In November of last year, her party won again, but the military said the election was rigged and seized control a few weeks later. The military’s charge of vote fraud was dismissed by the election commission at the time.
Thant Myint U, a historian and novelist, said military authorities believed their predecessors, who began reforms more than a decade ago, had gone too far in enabling Aung San Suu Kyi to return to politics, and that the coup was intended to keep her out.
“She remains far and away most popular in Myanmar politics and may still be a potent force in what’s to come,” he told news agency.
Since the coup, Western countries have demanded Aung San Suu Kyi’s release and criticised the brutality.
The UK termed the former leader’s sentencing “another abhorrent attempt by Myanmar’s military administration to stifle opposition and suppress freedom and democracy,” and urged the regime to “release political detainees, engage in dialogue, and allow a return to democracy” on Monday.
The sentencing, according to Matthew Smith, chief executive of the Fortify Rights organisation, was “part of a pervasive and systematic attack on the civilian people,” and he demanded that Aung San Suu Kyi and other political prisoners be released immediately.
The ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights (APHR) called the punishment a “travesty of justice” on Monday.
“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,” said Charles Santiago, a Malaysian legislator who heads the APHR.
He said that Monday’s ruling demonstrates “the junta’s continuing contempt for ASEAN” and its peace plan, which was agreed to with Myanmar’s military in April and includes initiating dialogue between the country’s opposing sides.
Myanmar has been in chaos since the coup, paralysed by protests and unrest that grew after the military’s violent crackdown on opponents. According to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP), a human rights organisation that keeps track of the country’s security forces’ executions, at least 1,303 people have been killed as a result of the crackdown.
According to the AAPP, at least 354 opponents of the coup have been sentenced to prison or death, including Aung San Suu Kyi’s aide Win Htein, who was sentenced to 20 years in prison in October.
Ming Yu Hah of Amnesty International said Aung San Suu Kyi’s conviction on Monday was “the latest illustration of the military’s desire to destroy all opposition and smother freedoms in Myanmar.”
“The court’s farcical and corrupt decision is part of a devastating pattern of arbitrary punishment that has seen more than 1,300 people killed and thousands arrested since the military coup in February,” she said, calling for swift, decisive and unified action from the international community.
“The international community must step up to protect civilians and hold perpetrators of grave violations to account, and ensure humanitarian and health assistance is granted as a matter of utmost urgency,” she said.
