Imprisoning Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmar's Military Regime: No One Is Above The Law!

Aung San Suu Kyi. (Wikimedia Commons/U.S. Department of State)

JAKARTA - A senior Myanmar regime official said on Tuesday that Aung San Suu Kyi's imprisonment showed no one was above the law and that the army chief had commuted her sentence on "humanitarian grounds".

Myanmar's military regime Information Minister Maung Maung Ohn also said at a virtual press conference that Myanmar's justice system was impartial and Monday's punishment of the Nobel laureate and former leader was by the law.

Suu Kyi, 76, was sentenced to four years in prison for sedition and violating Coronavirus regulations, but military junta leaders reduced her to two years in detention at her current location.

"No one is above the law", Maung Maung Ohn said on Tuesday, adding Myanmar's justice system was 'impartial'.

He spoke at a rare media briefing on the economy where he and the junta investment minister said the situation in the country was stable. They said preparations for elections to be held before August 2023 were underway, but would not confirm whether Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (LND) party would be allowed to run.

The party is being investigated by the election commission, which Maung Maung Ohn said he would report back early next year.

Myanmar has been in crisis since the military seized power in a February 1 coup, arresting Suu Kyi and most of her government officials.

Security forces seeking to crush the opposition have since killed more than 1,200 people according to the Association for Assistance to Political Prisoners (AAPP), with armed insurgencies springing up across the country.

On Sunday, security forces in a truck rammed into a flash mob protest in the commercial capital Yangon, killing at least five people, news website Myanmar Now reported.

Maung Maung Ohn said the protests were the result of anti-coup groups' pressure to get young people to get emotional, but crowd management by authorities was "sometimes handled unintentionally".

"Such protests must be prevented according to the law", he stressed.

The Myanmar Coup. The VOI editor continues to monitor the political situation in one of the ASEAN member countries. Civilian casualties continued to fall. Readers can follow news about the Myanmar military coup by tapping this link.