Four more years in jail for Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi
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Deposed Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi was sentenced by a Myanmar court to four years in jail after being found guilty of violating coronavirus restrictions imposed in the country as well as illegal importing and use of walkie-talkie devices.
In December last year, Suu Kyi was convicted on two other charges for incitement and breaching Covid-19 rules while campaigning and was awarded a sentence of four years.
However, this got halved to two years and the 76-year-old Nobel Peace Prize laureate was allowed to serve her term under house arrest in the capital city of Naypyidaw.
Suu Kyi, the leader of the National League for Democracy, was ousted as President of Myanmar last year in February by a military coup that has seen hundreds of civilian casualities and the rise in exodus of refugees to neighbouring nations like India and Bangladesh.
Suu Kyi's party won a landslide victory in a 2020 general election, but the military claimed there was widespread electoral fraud, an assertion that independent poll watchers doubt. Widespread protests have been enacted agains the military's rule with little effect.
She has essentially been hidden away from public view in an undisclosed location where she will be serving her sentence. Head of the military-installed government, Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, has blocked any access to the former leader from visiting dignitaries or foreign envoys.
The hearings are closed to the media and spectators and the prosecutors do not comment. Her lawyers, who had been a source of information on the proceedings, were served with gag orders in October.
Min Aung Hlaing was even rebuked by the members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations for refusing to allow their special envoy to meet Suu Kyi in detention.