Myanmar's military junta is trying to show that the country's former leader is fine. Suu Kyi was detained five years ago as a result of a coup.
Former leader of Myanmar and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, who has been in custody since February 2021, met with a delegation from the International Federation of Red Cross. This is her first confirmed meeting with anyone other than representatives of the Myanmar authorities in the last four years, writes the BBC.
In photographs from the meeting, published by the country's authorities, 81-year-old Aung San Suu Kyi looks healthy and confident. However, no details about her health condition or what she discussed with the guests have been reported.
This spring, Aung San Suu Kyi's son, Kim Aris, launched an international campaign demanding confirmation that his mother was alive and well. In May, he appealed to French President Emmanuel Macron to demand proof from the Myanmar authorities that his mother was alive and healthy.
Kim Aris received the first letter from Aung San Suu Kyi after her detention in February 2024. After that, he received no further news from her. Her lawyers have not seen their client for over three years. The last photograph in which the former leader of Myanmar was captured was published in May 2021 during her trial.
Despite repeated assurances from the military that Suu Kyi was alive and well, they provided no convincing evidence of this.
Coup and Conviction
Aung San Suu Kyi was detained shortly after the armed forces overthrew her government in 2021.
The military coup in Myanmar took place several months after Aung San Suu Kyi's party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), won a landslide victory in the elections.
The military claimed that the election results were falsified, but independent observers confirmed that the elections were generally fair and free.
After the military coup, people took to the streets, and the military began to brutally suppress demonstrations by democracy supporters, activists, and journalists.
Aung San Suu Kyi was sentenced to 33 years in prison on 19 charges, including corruption and violation of election laws. She vehemently denied all charges, calling them absurd, and her supporters accused the country's new authorities of fabricating cases against the politician to exclude her participation in the country's political life.
In 2023, the former leader of Myanmar's sentence was commuted: the term was reduced to 27 years in prison, and in April this year, the country's authorities announced that she had been transferred to house arrest.
Throughout the period after her sentencing, nothing was known about Aung San Suu Kyi's detention conditions or health.
Myanmar's military leader Min Aung Hlaing is striving to bring his regime out of international isolation. In recent months, he has made a number of official visits to neighboring countries.
Allowing Aung San Suu Kyi to meet with representatives of an international organization is likely also motivated by a desire to lift the country out of diplomatic isolation. Earlier, after reports of Aung San Suu Kyi's transfer to house arrest, experts suggested that the Myanmar authorities might be preparing for further changes in her status, including her release.
According to the BBC correspondent, the publication of materials about the Red Cross representatives' meeting with the former leader of Myanmar may indicate that the military junta is indeed ready to satisfy one of the international community's demands in the near future — to release Aung San Suu Kyi.
Among other demands on the government of Myanmar are an end to the bombing of opposition-controlled areas and the start of negotiations to end the civil war.
Aung San Suu Kyi came to power in 2015 after Myanmar's previous leaders carried out democratic reforms. She gained renown as an activist and fighter for democracy under the previous military regime, spending over 15 years under house arrest. She continues to enjoy great popularity among Myanmar's Buddhist majority population.
However, her international reputation was significantly damaged due to the brutal treatment of representatives of the Muslim Rohingya ethnicity.
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