INTERNATIONAL: A Human Rights Watch official on Monday has denounced a four-year jail term handed down to Myanmar's ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi by "a kangaroo court" as "ridiculous". A court in military-ruled Myanmar has sentenced the 76-year-old Nobel peace prize winner AungSuu Kyi, for four years on Monday on charges of incitement and breaching coronavirus restrictions. President Win Myint was also sentenced to four years in prison.The court delivered its first verdicts in numerous cases against Suu Kyi and other civilian leaders detained by the military in a coup on February.
The Deputy Director of Human Rights Watch’ Asia Division, Phil Robertson boldly says that the sentences themselves are ridiculous. They’re talking about inciting public unrest, which according to them is something that the military just made up.
Aung Suu Kyi has been incited for violating Covid-19 regulations because a rally waved at her. Plenty of people campaigning back in November 2020 for election. The campaigns were for different candidates. But Aung Suu Kyi is being persecuted because of it.
Robertson says, "They can't beat her in the democratic election so they decided to have a coup and they use a kangaroo court, you know, in a judicial system that has been doing the bidding of the military for more than five decades to lock her away. I don't expect that we're ever going to see her again as a politician in Myanmar, I think that they're going to continue to pile charges on her so that she essentially dies in detention."
Myanmar has been in turmoil since the coup against Suu Kyi's democratically elected government has sparked widespread protests and raised international concern about the end of tentative political reforms following decades of military rule.
After the verdict on Monday, people take to streets in Myanmar after Suu Kyi sentenced to jail. People seen protesting in Yangon, Myanmar after deposed leader Aung San Suu Kyi found guilty in widely-criticised trial.
Suu Kyi is set to serve two years in detention at an undisclosed location, a sentence reduced from four years after a partial pardon from the country's military chief. The verdict has drawn international condemnation of what some critics described as a "sham trial." The military has not given details of where Suu Kyi has been detained and it was not immediately clear if the sentencing would mean any immediate change in her circumstances.
