Calls for Suu Kyi's release as military tightens grip

AFP

The party of Myanmar’s detained leader Aung San Suu Kyi called for her immediate release on Tuesday and for the military junta that seized power a day earlier to recognise her victory in an election in November.

The Nobel Peace laureate’s whereabouts remained unknown more than 24 hours after her arrest in a military takeover.

A senior official from her National League for Democracy said on Tuesday he had learned that her health was good and she was not being moved from the location where she was being held after the coup against her government.

She was picked up in the capital Naypyitaw on Monday along with dozens of other allies but her exact whereabouts have not been made public.

“There is no plan to move Daw Aung San Su Kyi and Doctor Myo Aung. It’s learned that they are in good health,” NLD official Kyi Toe said in a Facebook post which also referred to one of her allies. An earlier post said she was at her home.

Kyi Toe also said NLD members of parliament detained during the coup were being allowed to leave the quarters where they had been held. Most of the state ministers across Myanmar have been released from detention but are under house arrest, he said.

The UN Security Council was due to meet later on Tuesday amid calls for a strong global response to the military’s latest seizure of power in a country blighted for decades by army rule.

The United States threatened to reimpose sanctions on the generals who seized power. The coup followed a landslide win for Suu Kyi’s party in an election on November 8, a result the military has refused to accept citing unsubstantiated allegations of fraud.

The army handed power to its commander, General Min Aung Hlaing, and imposed a state of emergency for a year, claiming it would then hold fresh elections. Consolidating its position, the new junta removed 24 ministers and named 11 replacements for various portfolios including finance, defense, foreign affairs and interior.

The NLD’s executive committee demanded the release of all detainees “as soon as possible.”

In a post on the Facebook page of senior party official May Win Myint, the committee also called for the military to acknowledge the election results and for the new parliament to be allowed to sit. The streets of Myanmar were quiet, as they have been for weeks because of the coronavirus. Troops and riot police took up positions in Naypyitaw and the main commercial center Yangon.

Myanmar’s youth networks have announced a “civil disobedience” campaign, though it has yet to materialize on the streets. By early Tuesday, phone and Internet connections were restored and banks in Yangon had reopened.