Myanmar junta softens sentence of deposed leader

78-year-old Aung San Suu Kyi will still spend nearly three decades behind bars

Myanmar’s ruling military junta has granted partial clemency to ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi, knocking six years off her 33-year prison sentence. Considered a ‘democracy icon’ in the West, Suu Kyi was overthrown in a coup in 2021.

The reduction of Suu Kyi’s sentence was announced on Tuesday by military officer Aung Lin Dwe. According to state television, Suu Kyi was pardoned for five offenses, including violating coronavirus restrictions, illegally importing and possessing walkie-talkies and sedition. An additional 7,000 prisoners were also granted clemency to mark a Buddhist holiday, the report added.

While the pardon takes six years off Suu Kyi’s prison sentence, she will still serve 27 years behind bars, having been convicted on multiple counts of corruption and election fraud since her ouster. For the 78-year-old, the sentence effectively amounts to life in prison.

Suu Kyi was arrested and removed from power in a military coup in February 2021, after Myanmar’s top generals declared her electoral victory the previous November fraudulent. The military promised to hold new elections this year, but on Monday extended the state of emergency that it declared after seizing power in 2021.

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Suu Kyi was first placed under house arrest by Myanmar’s military government in 1990, after her National League for Democracy party emerged victorious from the country’s first election in three decades. The military refused to relinquish power and Suu Kyi was kept in detention for 15 of the 20 following years. She returned to politics after her release, becoming state counselor – a post equivalent to prime minister – in 2016.

Although celebrated by Western politicians and journalists throughout her detention and subsequent rise to power, Suu Kyi fell out of favor with her former backers when she presided over a controversial crackdown on the Rohingya Muslim minority in the country, which saw her accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice in 2019.

The United Nations has repeatedly called on the junta to release all political prisoners, and on Monday urged the generals to reinstate democratic rule.

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