Dec 6 Reuters - A court in military-ruled Myanmar sentenced Aung San Suu Kyi on Monday to four years in prison for incitement and violation of COVID 19 restrictions, giving the first verdicts against her since a coup ousted a civilian government on February 1.
Aung San Suu Kyi is the daughter of independence hero Aung San, who was murdered when she was a child. She spent much of her younger years abroad, and at Oxford University met her future husband, scholar Michael Aris, with whom she had two sons.
In 1988 she returned to Myanmar to care for her dying mother, but was quickly swept up in nationwide protests against decades of military rule. She was put under house arrest at her lakeside home in Yangon a year later.
Suu Kyi won a Nobel Peace Prize for campaigning for democracy in 1991, but was released from house arrest in 2010. A year later, she met President Thein Sein, marking the beginning of her pragmatic engagement with a government of ex-soldiers.
She was swept into power in a 2015 election. Her main objectives were to bring an end to civil war in various parts of the country, attract foreign investment and reduce the army's role in politics during the election campaign.
Suu Kyi also promised to address the dire situation of the Rohingya Muslim people, forming an advisory commission headed by former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan.
In 2017 following attacks by Rohingya militants, Myanmar's military launched a crackdown that the UN human rights high commissioner described as a textbook example of ethnic cleansing Suu Kyi going to the International Court of Justice in December 2019 to defend Myanmar from accusations of genocide. She acknowledged the possibility of war crimes but framed the crackdown as a legitimate military operation against terrorists while the Rohingya crisis hurt her reputation abroad, but she remains hugely popular at home and in November 2020 her party swept to power again.
But before her government was sworn in, the military launched a coup in February, arresting civilian leaders including Suu Kyi, who alleged the election was rigged, an assertion dismissed by the election commission at the time.
She faces a maximum penalty of more than 100 years in jail, including two for corruption and one for violating the Official Secrets Act. Her supporters say the charges are baseless and designed to keep her out of power.