The Myanmar junta is still tightening its judicial grip against former leader Aung San Suu Kyi, indicted for “electoral fraud” during the 2020 legislative elections, a ballot won hands down by her party.
The Nobel Peace Prize laureate, already on trial for sedition or corruption, will be prosecuted for “electoral fraud”, the newspaper reported on Tuesday Global New Light of Myanmar, controlled by the regime, without giving further details.
Fifteen other officials, including former President Win Myint, also arrested during the coup d’état of 1er February, will be prosecuted for the same offense.
The generals justified their putsch by ensuring that they 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. However, no one had been charged for this 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 enjoyed overwhelming support from voters. 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 …
She is also being prosecuted for inciting public disturbance, an offense punishable by three years in prison. A first verdict should be pronounced on November 30 in this aspect of the case, AFP learned from a source close to the case.
On December 14, the court will render its decision on another count, violating the restrictions against COVID-19. The 1991 Nobel Peace Prize winner faces long years in prison if found guilty.
The media are not allowed to attend his trial, held behind closed doors, before 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.
Myanmar has since descended into chaos with violent clashes between the military and citizen militias carrying out guerrilla warfare across the country.
Some rebel ethnic factions have also taken up arms against the junta.
For their part, the soldiers are leading 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 execution.
The press is muzzled by the army, which tries to strengthen its control over information, limiting Internet access and revoking 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.
Last week, the UN Security Council expressed “deep concern” over the crisis in Myanmar and called for an “immediate end to the violence”.