Aung San Suu Kyi, the civilian leader of Myanmar who was deposed in a military coup in 2021, has been transferred from prison to a government facility, according to a party official on Friday.
Suu Kyi has only been seen once since her arrest on February 1, 2021, in grainy state media images from a spartan courtroom in the military-built city of Naypyitaw.
According to the United Nations, the coup triggered a conflict that has displaced over one million people in Southeast Asia.
“On Monday night, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi was moved to a high-level venue compound,” a National League for Democracy official told AFP on condition of anonymity.
Suu Kyi also met the country’s lower house speaker, Ti Khun Myat, and is expected to see Deng Xijuan, China’s special envoy for Asian Affairs, who is visiting the country.
According to a source from another political party, Suu Kyi has been relocated to a VIP facility in Naypyitaw.
Thailand’s foreign minister announced in July that he had met with Suu Kyi, the first known contact with a foreign envoy since her detention.
The meeting lasted more than an hour, according to a junta spokeswoman, who did not elaborate on what was discussed.
Since her arrest, there have been concerns about the 78-year-old Nobel laureate’s health, notably during her trial in a junta court, where she was obliged to attend virtually daily hearings.
Suu Kyi was sentenced to 33 years in prison on a variety of offences, including embezzlement, illegal possession of walkie talkies, and violating coronavirus regulations.
Rights groups blasted her trial as a fraud intended to derail the popular leader’s political career.
Suu Kyi was transferred to a jail compound in another section of the capital in June 2022, after more than a year under house arrest in Naypyitaw.
She was no longer allowed to have her domestic staff of approximately 10 individuals and was instead allocated military-chosen aides, sources told AFP at the time.
Suu Kyi’s confinement in the remote capital is a far cry from the years she spent under house arrest during a previous regime, during which she became a world-famous democracy leader.
During that time, she lived in her family’s colonial-era lakeside palace in Yangon’s commercial hub, giving lectures to audiences on the other side of her garden wall.
Source: Myanmar Now
