Relatives of ousted Myanmar de facto Prime Minister Aung San Suu Kyi have lodged a complaint with the UN regarding their detention following last year’s military coup. Human rights lawyers Francois Zimeray and Jessica Finelle, acting on behalf of Suu Kyi’s family, today described the handling of the Nobel Peace Prize winner as “judicial kidnapping”. They submitted the request to the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention.
“Their arrest was unlawful, their detention without any legal basis, and their various trials violated the basic rules of any legal process,” the complaint said. It was a kidnapping disguised as a process. “This is a tragic step backwards for Myanmar.” At the same time, the 76-year-old will also “silence the entire Burmese (Myanmar, ed.) people and their democratic aspirations will be destroyed.”
Suu Kyi’s government was overthrown in a military coup last February, and she has been under house arrest ever since. She has already been sentenced to a total of eleven years in prison for the alleged illegal import of radios, violations of the CoV rules, incitement once morest the military and allegations of corruption. There are also other proceedings once morest them for breaches of official secrecy, electoral fraud and corruption. If she is found guilty in all cases, she faces more than 100 years in prison.
