UPDATE - With another 7-year conviction, Myanmar’s Suu Kyi to spend 33 years in jail

UPDATES WITH UN HUMAN RIGHTS STATEMENT

By Riyaz ul Khaliq

ISTANBUL (AA) – A junta court on Friday sentenced Myanmar’s former leader Aung San Suu Kyi to seven more years, bringing her total jail term in all cases to 33 years.

The latest jail term, the 15th conviction, was given in a case of alleged corruption, which brings her trial in all cases to an end.

Former State Counselor Suu Kyi was arrested last year in February when the country’s military launched a coup.

The latest jail term was pronounced in prison by the Military Council today.

The UN human rights body called the “guilty verdicts” a “campaign of persecution faced by pro-democracy activists and dissidents.”

“We appeal to de facto military authorities to stop the repression and to release all arbitrarily detained individuals,” the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights said in a brief statement on Twitter.

Last week, the UN Security Council called on the military junta to release all political prisoners, including Suu Kyi.

In October, the incarcerated Burmese leader was served two more three-year jail terms over “corruption” which had brought her prison term to 26 years.

Different charges against Suu Kyi include alleged election fraud, breaching COVID-19 public safety rules, importing walkie-talkies, and violating the official secrets act.

Earlier this year in June, the military regime moved her to prison and placed her in solitary confinement.

After her ouster in a military coup on Feb. 24, 2021, Suu Kyi was placed under house arrest until April this year, when she was shifted to an unknown location, believed to be Naypyitaw Prison in Myanmar’s capital.

Suu Kyi previously spent around 15 years under house arrest during different junta regimes in the Buddhist-majority country.

She was imprisoned for the second time in 2009. The then-junta regime had transferred her to Yangon's Insein Prison for four months earlier that year for "violating the rules of her house arrest."

Suu Kyi's government was deposed after her party National League for Democracy won the national elections in November 2020.

The coup was met with widespread civic unrest as people denounced her removal and military rule. The junta repressed protests violently, despite UN warnings that the country had descended into civil war.

The UN rights office has said at least 2,316 people, including at least 188 children, have been killed in Myanmar since the military seized power.