INTERNATIONAL: Myanmar’s ruling military junta has leveled new criminal charges against Aung San Suu Kyi, the de facto leader of the country’s former civilian government, who led a non-violent struggle against dictatorship in the last two decades of the military's 1962-2011 rule of Myanmar.

The 76-year old Nobel Peace Prize laureate Suu Kyi and 15 other officials have been accused of various charges of electoral fraud in connection with last November 2020 general elections, won in a landslide by Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy over the military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party.

The junta has cited widespread electoral fraud in the elections as its reason for toppling the civilian government on 1 February. The civilian electoral commission has denied the military’s allegations of fraud, a stand supported by independent monitoring groups such as the Asian Network for Free Elections.The NLD says it won fairly. The junta has since declared the results of the 2020 election invalid and has threatened to dissolve the NLD. The military justified its coup by accusing Suu Kyi's National League of Democracy party (NLD) of obtaining a landslide victory through a manipulated vote.

Suu Kyi is so far facing 11 criminal cases, including two of corruption and one of violating the colonial-era Official Secrets Act, which carries a penalty of up to 14 years in prison, one of her lawyers has shared. She was charged at the eastern district court in Yangon under Section 3 (1) (c) of the 1923 law. The section criminalizes the possession, collection, recording, publishing, or sharing of state information that is “directly or indirectly useful to an enemy.” All her charges carry a maximum of more than 100 years' prison sentence.

Her trials are ongoing behind closed doors and defense lawyers, the only source of information on the proceedings, are imposed gag orders by the authorities. Court officials only allowed her to attend the hearing, barring other defence lawyers.