Aung San Suu Kyi was jailed for four years for incitement and breaking a natural disasters law, according to reports, the first sentence handed down to Myanmar s ousted leader since the junta took power and accused her of a litany of crimes that could lead to decades in prison.
Aung San Suu Kyi, 76, has been accused of a series of offences ranging from unlawful possession of walkie-talkies to breaches of the Official Secrets Act. The cases were described as absurd on Monday when a court sentenced her to four years in prison, according to reports by the BBC.
Little is known about the proceedings in any of her legal cases. She was tried in a closed court, with no access for observers, and her lawyer has been gagged from speaking to journalists.
The charges against her have risen since February, as a clear attempt to remove her as a political threat, according to analysts. Her party the National League for Democracy won a thumping victory in the election last year, but the military refused to accept the result.
The leader, who previously spent 15 years in prison campaigning against the military, could be held by the junta for the rest of her life if found guilty of all charges.
According to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, she is one of more than 10,600 people arrested by the junta since February, as it has tried to crush any form of opposition. At least 1,303 people have been killed.
A year since the coup, the military has struggled to impose order. The economy is failing, health and education systems have collapsed, poverty rates have soared and conflict has escalated. Last month, the Special Advisory Council for Myanmar, which included experts such as Yanghee Lee, the former UN special rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar, warned that military offences were cutting off communities' food and medical supplies, forcing people to the brink of starvation.
The junta is faced with both a peaceful resistance movement and an armed opposition formed of people's defence forces allied with various ethnic armed groups. In September of this year, the National Unity Government, a shadow government formed by elected officials, declared a defensive war against the junta, calling for civilian armed groups to target the military and its assets.
Joshua Kurlantzick, senior fellow fellow for Southeast Asia at the Council on Foreign Relations, said that the NUG, which is seeking international recognition, is making headway in securing major meetings with officials internationally. He said that the continued success of the people's defence forces may have an impact on how other governments view the situation in Myanmar.
Aung San Suu Kyi has been held since February in an unknown location. A special envoy from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, who has led diplomatic efforts to solve the crisis, has been refused permission to meet with her. The bloc resisted the decision to barring the junta chief from its meetings.
Richard Horsey, the senior adviser to the International Crisis Group in Myanmar, said that ASEAN appeared to lack the leverage to force the junta to change course despite the actions of the international crisis group. While other countries supported the ASEAN approach, this has mostly been a way of outsourcing the problem to ASEAN rather than any conviction that the regional bloc could make progress, he added, speaking before Monday s ruling. Myanmar needs to be a higher priority for the major powers and the UN.