YANGON, Myanmar (AP) – Myanmar authorities have accused the country’s deposed leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, of possessing illegally imported walkie-talkies, her allies said Wednesday, a move that overthrew generals overthrowing her legal grounds. forces her to detain for two weeks.
The accusation came to light two days after Suu Kyi was placed under house arrest and appeared to be an attempt to give her detention a legal layer, although the generals previously held her and others locked up for years.
The military announced on Monday it would take power for a year and accused Suu Kyi’s government of not investigating allegations of voter fraud in recent elections. Suu Kyi’s party got that vote, and the military-backed party fared poorly.
National League for Democracy spokesman Kyi Toe upheld the charges against Suu Kyi, which carries a maximum sentence of three years in prison. He also said the deposed president of the country, Win Myint, was charged with violating the natural disaster management law. A leaked cargo sheet dated February 1 indicates that they can be held until February 15.
“It was clear that the military would be looking into legal cases against the leaders of the National League for Democracy and especially Aung San Suu Kyi to actually legitimize what they have been trying to do,” said Larry Jagan, an independent Myanmar analyst. Affairs. “And that’s really a seizure of power.”
Police and court officials in the capital, Naypyitaw, could not be immediately contacted.
At the same time as authorities worked to detain Suu Kyi, hundreds of lawmakers forced to stay in government homes after the coup were told on Wednesday to leave the capital within 24 hours and go home, one said. Member of Parliament. from Suu Kyi’s company that belongs to the group. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he feared drawing the attention of the military.
The coup was a dramatic setback for Myanmar, which had made strides towards democracy, underscoring the extent to which the generals ultimately retained control of the Southeast Asian country.
In response to the coup, Suu Kyi’s party has called for nonviolent resistance, and dozens of people in Yangon, Myanmar’s largest city, honked pots and pans in a protest Tuesday night. Supporters of the army have also organized demonstrations.
Medical workers have also stated that they will not work to the new military government in protest of the coup at a time when the country is battling a steady increase in COVID-19 cases with a dangerously inadequate health system. Photos of health workers with red ribbons on their clothes or printed photos of red ribbons were shared on social media.
There were also protests in neighboring Thailand, where Khin Maung Soo, a Myanmar citizen, said on Wednesday that he was demonstrating to “show the world that we are not happy with what happened.”
He added, “We want the whole world to help us too.”
The takeover marked a shocking fall from power for Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize winner who had lived under house arrest for years while trying to push her country towards democracy, then became the de facto leader after her party won the 2015 election.
Suu Kyi had been a fierce critic of the military during her years in detention. But after her shift from democracy icon to politician, she teamed up with the generals and even defended their crackdown on Rohingya Muslims, harming her international reputation.
The international community, which had enthusiastically supported Myanmar’s burgeoning democracy, is now facing a test. The United States has threatened sanctions and labeled the takeover a coup. The UN Security Council held an emergency meeting on Tuesday, but took no action.
Foreign ministers of the Group of 7 Leading Industrialized Countries issued a statement on Wednesday calling for the release of Suu Kyi and others and for the restoration of power to the democratically elected government. In an interview on Washington Post Live, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the UN would work with key international players “to put enough pressure on Myanmar to make this coup a failure.”
While in power, Myanmar’s new leader said the military government plans to investigate alleged fraud in last year’s election. Senior General Min Aung Hlaing announced the measures Tuesday at the first meeting of his new government in the capital, the state-run newspaper Global New Light of Myanmar said.
While the military has cited the government’s failure to properly investigate allegations of electoral irregularities as one of the reasons for the coup, the state union electoral committee has said there were no significant problems with the vote.
Analysts have said that the landslide victory of Suu Kyi’s party may have taken the military by surprise – and worried the generals that it had too much power, even though the constitution was carefully drafted to ensure that the military retained significant control, too. with an allocation of 25% of the seats in Parliament.
Min Aung Hlaing also said that the Suu Kyi government’s COVID-19 containment measures would continue.
Myanmar has confirmed more than 140,600 cases, including about 3,100 deaths. According to UN studies, healthcare infrastructure is one of the weakest in Asia.
A statement issued Wednesday on behalf of the executive members of Suu Kyi’s party said authorities on Tuesday began raided the party’s offices in Mandalay and other states and regions and seized documents and laptops.
The statement on the Facebook page of party spokesman Kyi Toe said locks were broken at several offices. It condemned the raids as illegal and demanded that they stop.
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Associated Press writers Kirsten Grieshaber in Berlin and Edith M. Lederer of the United Nations contributed to this report.
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This story has been updated to correct that the charges against Suu Kyi have a maximum sentence of three years, not two.