Former civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi had her 33-year prison sentence reduced by six years following a collective pardon granted by Myanmar’s ruling military junta on Tuesday.
The amnesty movement concerns more than 7,000 prisoners, on the occasion of Buddhist Lent, a common practice in this country to commemorate religious holidays.
“The Chairman of the State Administrative Council (the name by which the ruling junta calls itself, editor’s note) pardoned Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, who was sentenced by the competent courts, under the law on human rights,” the television news reported on Tuesday.
“She could not be fully released although some sentences against her have been pardoned. She still faces 14 cases. Only five out of 19 cases have been pardoned,” a legal source told AFP. .
“His sentence was reduced by 6 years,” the junta spokesman said.
The military “is playing a cruel game with a political prisoner,” independent expert David Mathieson told AFP. “The charges against her are absurd and taking six years off her is no pity.”
For Phil Robertson, deputy director of the Asia division of Human Rights Watch, the junta seeks to “give the impression of moderation and dialogue when in reality there is none”.
The reduced sentence shows the arbitrariness of the junta’s military courts, said Joe Freeman, Amnesty International’s Burma spokesperson. “Those caught in its clutches never know what can happen to them,” he added.
In late December, Aung San Suu Kyi was sentenced to 33 years in prison on a series of charges including bribery, possession of illegal walkie-talkies and breaching Covid restrictions.
This figure of democracy in Burma has only been seen once since she was arrested after the putsch on February 1, 2021, in poor quality photos taken by state media in a room of court hearing in Naypyidaw, the capital built in the jungle by the army.
Former President Win Myint also received partial pardons in two cases, according to state media, which said 125 foreign prisoners would be pardoned and released. In addition, some prisoners facing the death penalty have had their sentences reduced to life imprisonment.
The coup plunged Burma into a conflict that led to the displacement of more than a million people, according to the United Nations.
The health of the 78-year-old Nobel laureate has raised concerns since her detention, especially during her trial in a junta court which forced her to attend almost daily hearings.
In July, Thai Foreign Minister Don Pramudwinai said he met Aung San Suu Kyi in her cell, in what was the first known encounter with a foreign envoy since she was detained.
Last week, Aung San Suu Kyi was transferred from her prison cell to a government building, according to a representative of her political party.
According to a local watchdog group, more than 24,000 people have been arrested since the military ousted the civilian leader’s government from power in 2021.
The state of emergency was extended on Monday by the military junta for six months, state media said, theoretically leading to a postponement of elections originally scheduled to be held in August.
Aung San Suu Kyi remains hugely popular in Burma, even though her international image has been tarnished by her power-sharing deal with the generals and her failure to defend the persecuted Rohingya minority.
Many supporters of democracy have renounced its fundamental principle of non-violence and taken up arms in an attempt to permanently eradicate the military’s domination of the country’s politics and economy.
The army justified its coup on alleged widespread electoral fraud in the November 2020 elections, triggering huge protests and bloody repression.
Those elections were won hands down by Ms Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD), and international observers said at the time that they had been largely free and fair.
According to a local monitoring group, more than 3,800 people have died since the coup, but the junta puts the figure at 5,000.
08/01/2023 11:18:55 – Rangoun (AFP) – © 2023 AFP
