The Burmese junta is still tightening its judicial grip around Aung San Suu Kyi, overthrown in February: the generals indict him for “electoral fraud” during the 2020 legislative elections won hands down by his party.
• Read also: Burmese freed American journalist feared he would never get out of prison
• Read also: Burma to release more than 5,000 protesters jailed since coup
• Read also: Burma: UN warns of risk of wider civil war
The Nobel Peace Prize winner, under house arrest for more than nine months, will be prosecuted for “electoral fraud,” the regime-controlled Global New Light of Myanmar newspaper reported on Tuesday, without giving further details.
Fifteen other officials, including former President Win Myint, also arrested in the February 1 coup, will be prosecuted for the same offense.
The junta justifies its passage in force by ensuring that it discovered more than 11 million irregularities during the November 2020 elections, won overwhelmingly by the National League for Democracy (LND) of Aung San Suu Kyi.
But no one had been charged for it so far.
International observers, for their part, at the time described the election as “generally free and fair”.
Junta leader Min Aung Hlaing threatened to dissolve the NLD, the country’s main opposition force, and assured that new elections would be held by August 2023.
“Spurious allegations”
“The junta is using spurious allegations of electoral fraud to justify its coup,” Richard Horsey of the International Crisis Group told AFP.
“Aung San Suu Kyi and his party had overwhelming support from voters, the guilty verdicts will not convince anyone.”
This new indictment of the former leader comes the day after the release of American journalist Danny Fenster, pardoned after more than six months of detention on the eve of a trial where he risked life imprisonment for terrorism. He was deported to the United States.
Aung San Suu Kyi, 76, has been on trial since June for a multitude of offenses – illegal importation of walkie-talkies, sedition, corruption, incitement to public unrest …
She is also accused of violating the rules of restrictions against Covid-19. And a first verdict is expected on December 14 in this part of the case.
She faces long years in prison if found guilty.
The media are not allowed to attend his trial, behind closed doors, in a special court in the capital Naypyidaw. The junta also banned its legal team from speaking to the press and international organizations.
At the end of October, Win Htein, an 80-year-old close collaborator, was sentenced to 20 years in prison for treason.
The February coup put an end to a decade-long democratic transition.
Since then, the soldiers have led a bloody crackdown against their opponents with more than 1,250 civilians killed and nearly 7,300 in detention, according to a local NGO, the Association for Assistance to Political Prisoners (AAPP). She reported cases of torture, rape and extrajudicial executions.
The press is muzzled by the junta, which tries to strengthen its control of information, limiting access to the internet and canceling media licenses.
More than 100 journalists have been arrested in recent months, according to Reporting ASEAN, an association for the defense of rights. A total of 31 of them are still in detention.