SUU KYI CHARGED FOR POSSESSING ILLEGAL WALKIE-TALKIES

Wed 03 February 2021:

Police in Myanmar have charged deposed national leader Aung San Suu Kyi with having several illegally imported walkie-talkies in her home, members of her party said.

Suu Kyi was detained on Monday, along with other senior politicians, when the military staged a coup the day the newly elected parliament was supposed to open its session.

Leaked police documents revealed Wednesday that senior Myanmar government leaders who were detained in a military coup are facing criminal charges.

Suu Kyi and Myint, who were believed to be under house arrest in the political capital Naypyitaw, disappeared from the public eye although some other detainees, who were released or put under house arrest, have access to the communication channels.

The two leaked police documents, which went viral on social media, stated that Suu Kyi and Myint were remanded on Monday by a district court in the Zabuthiri township of Naypyitaw via videoconferencing for 14 days.

It stated that Suu Kyi is facing up to three years imprisonment over charges under the country’s export-import law for possessing 20 illegally imported walkie-talkies and a jumper which were confiscated at her house during an early morning raid on Monday.

National League for Democracy (NLD) spokesman Kyi Toe confirmed the charge on his Facebook page.

He also said the country’s ousted president, Win Myint, had been charged with violating natural disaster management law. An NLD politician, Phyo Zayar Thaw, also confirmed the charges.

Police and court officials in the capital Naypyitaw could not immediately be contacted.

Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate who had lived under house arrest for years as she tried to push her country towards democracy and then became its de facto leader after her party won elections in 2015.

Suu Kyi had been a fierce critic of the army during her years in detention.

But after her shift from democracy icon to politician, she worked with the generals and even defended their crackdown on Rohingya Muslims, damaging her international reputation.

The UN Security Council held an emergency meeting yesterday but took no action.

The foreign ministers of the Group of 7 leading industrial nations have issued a statement calling for Suu Kyi and others to be released, the state of emergency to be scrapped, and power restored to the democratically-elected government.

Myanmar’s military declared a state of emergency on Monday, hours after detaining Myint, Suu Kyi, and other senior members of the NLD.

The coup took place hours before the first session of the country’s new parliament was set to convene following elections last November in which Suu Kyi’s NLD party made sweeping gains.

The military claimed the coup was staged due to “election fraud” in the polls, which it said resulted in the dominance of the NLD in the parliament.

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