Detained And Sentenced To Hundreds Of Years By Myanmar Military Regime, Aung San Suu Kyi's Family Complains To UN

Aung San Suu Kyi with her bodyguard Ma Cherry Htet. (Twitter/@sumyaty512)

JAKARTA - The family of Myanmar's ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi has filed a complaint with the UN watchdog about her detention following last year's military coup, their lawyer said Wednesday.

Since a coup toppled her government in February 2021, which plunged Myanmar into turmoil, the 76-year-old Nobel peace prize laureate has been in the custody of the military regime, facing a series of charges that could jail him for more than 150 years.

Describing the situation as a 'judicial kidnapping', human rights lawyers Francois Zimeray and Jessica Finelle said they had filed a complaint on behalf of her relative with the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention.

"Her arrest was illegal, her detention had no legal basis whatsoever, and her different trials violated the basic rules governing any legal procedure," reads the complaint, as seen by AFP, citing CNA, May 25.

"This is a kidnapping disguised as a trial, she is being held without communication which is against all justice and resisted with unacceptable force of psychological torture."

"This is a tragic setback for Myanmar. Through the figure of Aung Sang Suu Kyi, the entire Burmese people were silenced, and their democratic aspirations crushed," the complaint continued.

After facing a series of "fake accusations", Aung San Suu Kyi has so far been sentenced to a total of 11 years in prison, but faces the prospect of more than 100 years on 17 different charges, lawyers say.

Under the previous military regime, Aung San Suu Kyi spent time under house arrest at her family's lakeside home in Yangon, Myanmar's largest city. Right now, however, he is confined to an undisclosed location in the capital, with his contacts with the outside world limited to brief pre-trial meetings with lawyers.

"Can anyone imagine what this detention would mean for a (soon) 77-year-old woman, who has spent 15 years of her life deprived of her liberty?" Zimeray and Finelle asked.