Saturday May 22, 2021
The military dissolves the party
Aung San Suu Kyi is due to appear in court
Since the coup in Myanmar in February, the defacto head of government and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi has not been seen in public. Now she is to appear personally in court for the first time. According to military ruler Min Aung Hlaing, the 75-year-old is doing well.
In Myanmar, the former de facto head of government Aung San Suu Kyi, who was arrested after the military coup, is due to appear in court soon. This will be the case in “a few days”, announced military ruler Min Aung Hlaing in an interview. According to him, Nobel Peace Prize winner Suu Kyi is at home. She was in good health, he said, according to excerpts from a conversation with the Chinese-language, Hong Kong-based broadcaster Phoenix Television. The 75-year-old has been under house arrest since the military coup in February and has not been seen in public.
Suu Kyi’s party had clearly won the general election in November. When Parliament was about to meet for its first session on February 1, the military staged a coup and arrested Suu Kyi and other politicians on charges of election fraud. Further allegations against the popular politician range from the illegal possession of radio equipment to the violation of state secrets. Suu Kyi initiated cautious democratic reforms until the change of power. When asked about her merits, Military Ruler Min Aung Hlaing said, “She did what she could.”
Ex-ruling party is dissolved
The military government had previously announced that it would dissolve Suu Kyi’s party, the National League for Democracy (NLD). The former ruling party will be withdrawn from its license, said the head of the state election commission, Thein Soe. NLD members who were involved in election fraud are being tried as “traitors”, he said, according to a report by the online portal “Myanmar Now”.
Since the coup there have been protests by the population almost every day, against which the military cracks down sharply. According to human rights groups, hundreds of demonstrators have been killed so far. In addition, the army is fighting against several ethnic militias. Fighters from the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) attacked a military post in the jade mining town of Hkamti in the northwest of the country on Saturday, as reported by the online platforms Irrawaddy and Mizzima. The latter reported that the military used planes in combat. Hkamti in the Sagaing region is about 50 kilometers from the border with India. A KIA spokesman said he knew about the attack but could not provide details. An opinion from the military was initially not available.
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