Myanmar Junta Reduces Aung San Suu Kyi's Prison Sentence

On Tuesday, Myanmar's State Administration Council granted pardons to for 7,749 Myanmar prisoners and 125 foreign prisoners. Six years of sentences for former State Counselor Aun San Suu Kyi and four years of sentences for former president U Win Myint were also reduced.

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The council also remitted the sentences for 22 members of the ethnic armed groups and dismissed the cases related to 72 individuals who were in connection with ethnic armed groups.

The moves on the Dhammacakka Day, an important Buddhist day that falls on the full moon of second Waso lunar month of the Myanmar calendar, aims to please the public on the humanitarian ground, the council said, adding that the pardons were granted in view of ethnic unity and internal peace.

The reduced sentence for Suu Kyi comes days after speculation mounted about a possible transfer to house arrest for the former leader, who has only been seen once in public since the coup.During the previous military junta (1962-2011), Suu Kyi spent 15 years under house arrest in a residence in Rangoon.

The changes in the situation of the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize winner come one day after the junta announced the six-month extension of the state of emergency in the country, which effectively prevents elections from being held in 2023 as expected.

Two and a half years ago, the coup toppled the government led by Suu Kyi and ended a decade of democratic transition. Since then, Myanmar has been mired in a deep political, social and economic crisis, which has exacerbated the guerrilla warfare that the country has been experiencing for decades.

The Army justifies the coup for alleged fraud during the November 2020 general elections, in which Suu Kyi's party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), won a landslide victory with the endorsement of international observers.

According to the latest count of the Association for the Assistance of Political Prisoners (AAPP), 19,733 political prisoners continue to be detained and 3,857 people have been murdered at the hands of the military regime.