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British Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper is leading a new campaign to free Myanmar’s former leader Aung San Suu Kyi as a sham election is imminent.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (FCDO) has called for Suu Kyi’s release as Myanmar’s junta seeks to justify its rule through elections that have excluded most of the opposition.
Meanwhile, the United Nations warned that the military-controlled vote was unfolding amid “increased violence, intimidation and arbitrary arrests, leaving no room for free or meaningful participation”.
No parties hostile to the junta have been allowed to contest, and Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) remains banned despite landslide victories in 2015 and 2020.
Aung San Suu Kyi’s family has not heard from her directly in two years and feared she might be dead.. The 80-year-old Nobel Peace Prize winner has not been seen in public since the coup that overthrew the government in 2021.
independent Ms Cooper is understood to be deeply concerned about the situation in the country and the continued imprisonment of Ms Suu Kyi.
An FCDO spokesperson told independent: “The British government continues to condemn the detention of Aung San Suu Kyi. The military regime must release her and all those arbitrarily detained.
“The UK continues to focus on Myanmar, including through our role in the UN Security Council.”
Sean Turnell, Suu Kyi’s former economic policy adviser, was detained for 650 days after the coup and called the election “a complete sham.”
“This is far from a fair election,” he told reporters. independent. “I wish we had used a different word than ‘election’ – that label conveys nothing about this act of public intimidation, which is trying to put lipstick on a particularly weird pig.
“The military plans to maintain absolute control. It is very important for the international community to be clear about the outcome of the election from the beginning. Because this is really just a drama.”
After a series of trials, Aung San Suu Kyi was sentenced to 33 years in prison, later reduced to 27 years, and is currently in solitary confinement. one Very controversial figure She remains viewed by some after refusing to speak out against extreme violence against the country’s Rohingya Muslim minority. “Myanmar’s great hope”.
The junta insisted without providing evidence that the former leader was in “good health” but her family feared the worst.
“She had ongoing health issues,” her son Kim Aris said in a recent interview. “No one has seen her in over two years.
“She was not allowed to have contact with her legal team, let alone her family. For all I know, she could be dead. I don’t think she would see these elections as having any meaning.”
The first phase of voting, scheduled for December 28, comes amid an atmosphere of armed conflict, mass displacement and economic collapse, the United Nations said.
Since the military government announced the election date on August 18, it has carried out at least 862 air strikes in 121 townships. Recently, a hospital in Rakhine State was bombed, killing more than 30 people, and another 18 people were killed by a bomb while watching a football match at a teahouse in the central Sagaing region.
Official electoral maps show that large swaths of the east, west and north will not hold votes, while the entire map is dotted with large areas where the junta says “elections will be held at a later date.”
“These elections are clearly taking place in an environment of violence and repression,” U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk warned this week. “There are no conditions for the exercise of the rights to freedom of expression, association or peaceful assembly.”
Thousands of opponents were imprisoned after the coup, all protests were criminalized and dissidents faced harsh penalties.
Three young artists in Yangon who posted anti-election posters were sentenced to 42 and 49 years in prison respectively. Elsewhere, a man who tore up a list of candidates was jailed for 17 years.
A young man named Ko Nay Thway from Taunggyi City wrote on Facebook: “If [the junta] Want to get people’s votes, [they should] With service to the people in mind.” In response, he was sentenced to seven years in prison under a new election protection law.
Myanmar journalist Hanthar Nyein, who was released after four years in prison in Yangon, said: “The military has only three ways to gain and maintain power: seize power through a coup, establish legitimacy through fake political parties, and then use a puppet parliament to rule permanently from behind the scenes.
“The 2008 constitution stipulates that the military must play a leading role in national politics. The military claims that only its ‘guardianship’ can prevent the disintegration of a country with many ethnic minorities.”
Critics argue that military rule itself has disintegrated the country.
Former British Ambassador to Myanmar Sir John Jenkins tells us independent: “Generals may think they can solidify their tyranny with a rigged victory, and may even feign magnanimity amid false consequences.
“I hope this will be an opportunity for international actors to refocus on an important issue: justice for all the people of Myanmar. I will not hold my breath.”