Burmese authorities yesterday filed criminal charges against deposed leader Aung San Suu Kyi for possessing illegally imported walkie-talkies just days after the military ousted her government in a coup.
Aung San Suu Kyi was charged for breaching an import-export law and faces as many as three years in prison if convicted.
A police incident report said that unauthorized telecommunications equipment was found at her home in Naypyitaw, the capital.
Photo: EPA-EFE
Former Burmese president Win Myint was separately charged for breaching the natural disaster management law over an election campaign rally that police say breached COVID-19 restrictions and faces the same penalty, the report said.
Kyi Toe, a member of the central information committee of Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) party, confirmed the report.
Aung San Suu Kyi has called on supporters to resist Myanmar’s generals, who seized power on Monday after claiming without presenting evidence that her landslide victory in the election in November last year was tainted with fraud.
The military has pledged to hold elections after a year-long state of emergency.
NLD lawmakers yesterday released a statement demanding the immediate release of Aung San Suu Kyi and Win Myint, recognition of the election results and the removal of all barriers to holding a new parliamentary session.
Protests against the coup have emerged, with a “Civil Disobedience Movement” started by democracy advocates, including medical professionals, yesterday announcing that more than 70 hospitals and medical departments would stop work in protest of what it called an “illegitimate” government.
The coup could not have come at a worse time for a country battling a steady rise in COVID-19 cases with a dangerously inadequate health system.
“We want to show the world we are totally against military dictatorship, and we want our elected government and leader back,’’ said Zun Ei Phyu, a doctor in Yangon. “We want to show them we will follow only our elected government. Not the military.”
Photographs were shared on social media showing workers with red ribbons pinned to their clothes or holding printed photographs of red ribbons.
Others used a three-finger salute that has become a symbol of pro-democracy protests in Thailand, where the military staged a coup six years ago and remains influential.
Some medical staff went on strike, while others who continued work in government-run clinics made public their opposition to the new military rulers.
Some of those on strike have begun to volunteer at charity health clinics, many of which were shut down as a precaution against a surge in COVID-19 cases.
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