Court in Myanmar adds 3 years to Suu Kyi’s jail term

A court in Myanmar has convicted the country’s ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi on two more corruption charges, adding to previous convictions that now leave her with a 26-year total prison term.

A judiciary official said on Wednesday the 77-year-old Suu Kyi, who was detained by the ruling junta on Feb. 1, 2021, was handed two concurrent three-year sentences for receiving a total of $550,000 in 2019 and 2020 as a bribe from Maung Weik, a tycoon convicted of drug trafficking.

Prior to this, Suu Kyi, who has always denied any wrongdoing, had already been sentenced to 23 years in prison after being convicted of illegally importing and possessing walkie-talkies, violating coronavirus restrictions, breaching the country’s official secrets act, sedition, election fraud and five corruption charges.

Suu Kyi’s supporters and independent analysts say the charges are politically motivated and an attempt to discredit her and legitimize the junta’s seizure of power while keeping her away from the political scene.

Suu Kyi has not been seen or allowed to speak in public since she was arrested, and her lawyers, who had been a source of information on the proceedings, were no longer allowed to speak publicly on her behalf or about her trial after a gag order was placed on them last year.

Since the coup, the junta has been enforcing a strict media crackdown in Myanmar.

Most recently, one journalist was sentenced to three years in jail for alleged incitement while two charges were filed against an editor last week.

Detained political columnist U Sithu Aung Myint was handed a three-year prison with labor sentence by a special court inside Insein Prison in Yangon on October 5 for alleged incitement. He had been detained  on August 15 last year in Yangon along with freelance BBC producer Ma Htet Htet Khine.

Ma Htet Htet Khine has been given a six-year sentence for alleged unlawful association.

U Khaing Myat Kyaw, the chief editor of the Narinjara News Agency based in Rakhine State’s capital, Sittwe, has also been indicted for reporting a fatal mine blast in Mrauk-U, Rakhine State, on September 30, which alleged that the mine had been planted by junta forces.

Myanmar junta arrests more journalists amid escalating crackdown on media

Myanmar

More than 140 journalists have been detained since the 2021 coup. Over 60 remain behind bars and four journalists have died in custody.

Several rights organizations have demanded that the junta stop prosecuting journalists and end its assault on independent media.

UN envoy says ‘deeply concerned’ about escalating violence in Myanmar

Heyzer urged “all parties to... allow humanitarian assistance to be provided to those in need, including those forced to flee the violence.”

Myanmar’s military forces were also involved in a campaign of genocide against Muslim Rohingya that started in 2017 during the rule of Suu Kyi, who was supported by the West. The military has been accused of ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya Muslims and other minority groups in the country.

Nearly 900,000 Rohingya refugees remain stuck in squalid, crowded conditions in refugee camps in neighboring Bangladesh after members of the Muslim minority were forced to flee their homes in 2017. Thousands of Rohingya Muslims were killed, raped, tortured, or arrested by the junta forces, according to the UN, which has described the community in the western state of Rakhine as the most persecuted minority in the world.

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