Myanmar: Aung San Suu Kyi 'Arrested by Army'

 

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Aung San Suu Kyi, leader of Myanmar's ruling National League for Democracy (NLD), has been arrested. A party spokesman confirmed Aung San Suu Kyi's arrest. 

  

Aung San Suu Kyi's arrest comes as tensions between the civilian government and the military escalate into a coup. 

  

It should be noted that in the November elections in the country, the NLD had won reasonable seats in the parliament to form a government, but the army considers the election results to be fake. 

  

The military has demanded that the government postpone Monday's parliamentary session. 

  

Aung San Suu Kyi, Aung San Suu Kyi and other leaders were detained early in the morning, a spokeswoman for the Ning San Suu Kyi Party told Reuters by telephone. 

  

"I want to tell my people not to react in a hurry and I want them to act in accordance with the law," Mayo Newton said, noting that they too could be arrested. 

  

Jonathan Head in Southeast Asia says troops are on the streets of the capital, Nay Pyi Taw, and the capital, Yangon. 

  

Telephone and internet services have been cut off in Nay Pyi Taw, according to reports from Burma. 

  

According to the Chief Minister's family, the military personnel also visited their homes in various areas and took them away. 

  

It should be noted that on Saturday, Myanmar's armed forces had promised to abide by the constitution because of growing concerns in the country that the army was preparing for a coup. 

Who is Aung San Suu Kyi?

Aung San Suu Kyi is the daughter of Myanmar's independence hero General Aung San. Her father was assassinated in 1948, just before Myanmar gained independence from the British colonial rule when she was just two years old.

There was a time when Sochi was seen as a beacon of human rights, a principled activist who relinquished his freedom to challenge the ruthless military generals who had ruled Myanmar for decades.

Sochi spent nearly 15 years in captivity between 1989 and 2010 and was seen as a symbol of determination against military dictatorship.

He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991 while in custody.

In November 2015, under his leadership, his party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), won a landslide victory in the openly contested elections in 25 years of the country's history.

Myanmar's constitution barred him from becoming president because his children have foreign citizenship.

But Sochi, now 75, is widely seen as a de facto leader.

Army crackdowns in 2017 killed thousands of Rohingya Muslims living in Myanmar, while more than 700,000 fled to neighboring Bangladesh.

Former international supporters of Sochi have accused them of doing nothing to stop the rape, murder and genocide of Rohingya Muslims.

Initially, some argued that she was a pragmatic politician trying to rule a multi-ethnic country with a complex history, but during the 2019 International Court of Justice hearing, Sochi's military action The defense badly damaged his international reputation.

Sochi is still very popular with the Buddhist majority in Myanmar who have little sympathy for the Rohingya community.