Update: Myanmar Junta Move Aung San Suu Kyi to House Arrest

The military Junta has relocated Myanmar’s imprisoned former leader and Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi from prison to home arrest as a health precaution in the midst of a severe heatwave.

Major General Zaw Min Tun told international media on Tuesday that Aung San Suu Kyi and Win Myint, the president of her deposed administration, were among the elderly and infirm detainees released from prison.

“The hot weather affects more than just Aung San Suu Kyi.” We are attempting to protect all those who require additional care, particularly elderly convicts, from heatstroke,” he said.

The Myanmar military has imprisoned Aung San Suu Kyi, 78, since it deposed her government in a coup in 2021.

She is serving a 27-year prison sentence in Naypyidaw on a number of criminal charges, which her friends and rights groups claim were concocted for political reasons. Win Myint was serving an eight-year prison sentence in Taungoo, Myanmar’s Bago Region.

According to Myanmar’s meteorological bureau, temperatures in Naypyidaw reached 39 degrees Celsius (102.2 degrees Fahrenheit) on Tuesday.

Zaw Min Tun did not disclose where the released convicts were being relocated. Before being imprisoned, Aung San Suu Kyi was purportedly sheltered in a safe house within an army post.

Aung San Suu Kyi in solitary confinement

In February, Aung San Suu Kyi’s son Kim Aris stated that she was being confined in solitary confinement and that she was in high spirits “even if her health is not as good as it was in the past”.

Aris had previously stated that allegations that his mother had been placed under house arrest in July of last year were incorrect. He dubbed the allegations “disinformation” given by the military to pacify the world community at the time.

Many nations around the globe have called for the unconditional release of Aung San Suu Kyi and hundreds of other political detainees, and some, notably the US, EU, and UK, have imposed sanctions on the Southeast Asian country’s military.

Three years after the coup, Myanmar’s military is facing its most serious challenge to its control, as an armed resistance movement associated with the National Unity Government (NUG), formed by legislators loyal to Aung San Suu Kyi, gains traction on multiple fronts.

On Tuesday, a NUG spokeswoman asked for the unconditional release of Aung San Suu Kyi and Win Myint. “Moving them from prisons to houses is good, because houses are better than prisons,” spokeswoman Kyaw Zaw told Reuters late Tuesday.

“They must, however, be completely free. They must accept complete responsibility for Aung San Suu Kyi’s and U Win Myint’s health and security.

Military Junta Amnesty

Aung San Suu Kyi’s transfer came as the military offered amnesty to over 3,000 detainees to commemorate this week’s traditional Thingyan New Year holiday. It was unclear whether those released will include pro-democracy activists and political prisoners detained for protesting against military authority.

State-run According to MRTV, Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, the president of Myanmar’s ruling military council, has pardoned 3,303 convicts, including 28 foreign nationals who would be deported. He also lowered others’ sentences. Mass amnesties on holidays are common in Myanmar.

The Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP), which has been monitoring the post-coup crackdown, reported in its most recent statement on April 12 that about 20,351 persons were detained for resisting the military.

Meanwhile, a top rebel commander has pledged to retain the vital territory of Myawaddy near Thailand’s border with Myanmar before handing it over to the Karen National Union (KNU), the insurgents’ political arm.

On Monday, resistance fighters burnt the military government’s flag and erected their own at a freshly taken army base in the vital commercial town of Myawaddy opposite Mae Sot in Tak province.

The collapse of Myawaddy was another battlefield defeat for the powerful military junta that took over in 2021 from an elected government led by Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, who is now in custody.

Simmering rage against the junta has morphed into a nationwide armed resistance movement, which is increasingly working in tandem with existing ethnic rebel organizations to fight the military in significant sections of Myanmar.

Since late October, the army has lost control of critical districts near its borders with India and China to a loose alliance of rebel fighters. The loss of Myawaddy near the Thai border might further reduce the junta’s trading revenue.

UPDATE:

Informed sources in Myanmar say that Aung San Suu Kyi remains in prison in Nay Pyi Taw, dismissing reports that the former head of the civilian government had been moved to a house, according to The Irrawaddy, an independent Myanmar news outlet.

A “pro-regime media outlet” in Myanmar was the first to report the claim that Aung San Suu Kyi and former president U Win Myint, who have been in custody since shortly after the 2021 military coup, had been moved to new locations, The Irrawaddy said.

An hour later, Maj Gen Zaw Min Tun, a regime spokesman, told the Burmese services of Voice of America and the BBC: “Not only Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and U Win Myint but also some [other] older prisoners were given necessary care since the weather is extremely hot.”

He did not say anything about prisoners being moved, the report noted.

However, many media outlets in Myanmar and abroad appear to have interpreted the comments differently.

“Informed sources familiar with Suu Kyi and Nay Pyi Taw Prison said she remained there, adding that the regime may have provided air conditioners to protect her and other elderly prisoners from the current high temperatures,” The Irrawaddy said.