The son of ousted Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi has pleaded for her release from prison amid fears for the 79-year-old’s health in the country’s “terrible” prisons.
Kim Aris told The Independent his mother had already been held in prison for too long, and her health was now ailing.
“Maymay is frail and in bad health which is why I once again make this heartfelt plea for her to be released,” he said. “Her father died bringing freedom to his country. She has sacrificed so much of her life to give people fundamental human rights.”
Mr Aris’s plea comes as three former UK foreign secretaries united to demand Ms Suu Kyi’s release, saying she was being held in terrible conditions on trumped up charges and deserved the chance to lead her country in a democracy.
In 2015, the figurehead of Myanmar’s democratic movement and Nobel laureate won a remarkable election, but after a few years of an uneasy civil and military government alliance, she was arrested in early 2021 during a coup and is believed to have been held in solitary confinement ever since.
Watch: Cancelled: The rise and fall of Aung San Suu Kyi Documentary on Independent TV
“She has dedicated her life to the cause of freedom and fighting tyranny in her country. For too long she has been held without fair trial – but in all her years of captivity her endeavour to make Myanmar free and democratic has never wavered,” Mr Aris said.
“By her 80th birthday next year she will have spent a quarter of her life under military detention. I pray for her release as well as her wellbeing. She is a mother to me and my brother as well as to our country.
“May she live to breathe the air of freedom and share that in the name of democracy.”
Mr Aris said he was grateful for The Independent’s new documentary on Suu Kyi for highlighting her current plight in prison, adding: “I have been heartened by the response of three former UK foreign secretaries and other voices at Westmister who have also called for her release.”
The documentary, Cancelled: The rise and fall of Aung San Suu Kyi, charts her political emergence in the 1980s, her tumultuous time as the Myannar’s leader, and subsequent arrest and imprisonment.
Australian economist Sean Turnell was Suu Kyi’s economics advisor, and was also imprisoned shortly after the coup.
Mr Turnell saw her every Thursday during their joint year-long trial, and he said she was “incredibly strong” and maintained an “immense sense of humour” throughout the ordeal.
However, he said conditions inside the Myanmar prisons were dire: there was no protection from the extreme heat or monsoonal deluges, the food quality was terrible, and disease was rife.
Due to the poor conditions Turnell said deaths in prison were also common.
“The prison cells that political prisoners are held in Myanmar are rudimentary, if not just plain terrible,” he said.
Mr Turnell, who was released from prison in November 2022, said life for Ms Suu Kyi must now be “incredibly difficult”.
“She has a number of underlying health conditions that she has to deal with. The conditions that she’s being held under are quite awful,” he said.
Mr Turnell said he witnessed the Myanmar military construct a separate, special cell for Ms Suu Kyi during their trial, and he watched her being taken to and from the cell in terrible conditions he did not believe had improved much in the time since.
“I worry about her. I think all of those people who know and love her worry terribly about her,” he said.
“When I last saw her, which is, I guess, getting on for a year and a half ago now, she was incredibly resilient and all that, but the conditions were certainly not good.”
