Aung San Suu Kyi’s French lawyers have seized the United Nations, denouncing “a disguised kidnapping on trial” of the former Burmese leader, under house arrest by the junta since the coup.
“It has nothing to do with the law, it’s a disguised kidnapping on trial,” thunder François Zimeray and Jessica Finelle. The two French lawyers, mandated by the son and relatives of Aung San Suu Kyi, seized the United Nations to denounce the fate reserved for the former Burmese leader, under house arrest by the junta since the coup. “She is held incommunicado in defiance of all justice and is strongly resisting unacceptable psychological torture,” continue the two human rights lawyers, who filed Thursday in Geneva “a communication against the Burmese military junta to the Working Group of UN on Arbitrary Detention”. “His arrest was illegal in all respects, his detention lacks any legal basis, and the courts of the junta violate the most fundamental rules of the right to a fair trial. […] This is a tragic leap backwards for Burma. Through the person of Aung Sang Suu Kyi, it is the Burmese people who are gagged and the democratic aspiration in this country which is crushed”, estimates the duo of lawyers.
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This Wednesday, François Zimeray does not hide his concern from Paris Match: “The analysis that is made is that the military junta would not be angry if she ended up dying in prison”. “It is very worrying”, he continues, while any communication with Burma is complicated: “It is very difficult to have information since it is held in the most total secrecy”. At the same time, Amnesty International denounced “a new wave of war crimes” in Burma, more than a year after the return to power of the military junta in a coup on February 1, 2021: “In almost all the attacks documented, only civilians seem to have been present”, analyzes the NGO, which investigated air strikes that fell on various buildings between December and March in the east of the country, near the Thai border. The organization denounces a “characteristic policy of collective punishment of civilian communities” for their supposed or real opposition to the junta.
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11 years in prison for Aung San Suu Kyi
The crackdown on demonstrations opposing the coup was deadly. The United Nations has already denounced “probable war crimes and crimes against humanity” and identified nearly 1,900 civilians killed by the forces of the junta. Nearly 14,000 people were arrested. The return to power of the junta, which had already deprived Aung San Suu Kyi of her liberty for 15 years, led to the opening of several investigations against the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize winner: “To date, she has been sentenced to 11 years in prison and faces additional sentences of more than 100 years in prison for 17 different counts”, recall his lawyers. Among his convictions handed down by a special court whose hearings are closed to journalists in the capital of Naypyidaw, include breaches of coronavirus restrictions, the illegal importation of walkie-talkies and, last month, under the Anti -corruption. The military regime accuses him of having received 600,000 dollars and more than 11 kilos of gold in bribes from the former minister in charge of the Yangon region, Phyo Min Thein.
To justify the coup, the junta invoked fraud in the November 2020 elections, which resulted in a victory for Aung San Suu Kyi’s party, which was initially validated. It has planned the organization of new elections in 2023, in which Aung San Suu Kyi will not be able to participate because of these multiple convictions.