Speaking in Singapore, Noeleen Heyzer says she will make no second visit to the country unless she can see the deposed leader.
Noeleen Heyzer, the United Nations special envoy on Myanmar, has said she is “very concerned” about the health of Myanmar’s deposed leader Aung San Suu Kyi who has been in detention since the military removed her from office in a coup in February 2021, and that she will not visit the country again unless she can see her.
Speaking at the ISEAS Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore on Monday, Heyzer noted that Aung San Suu Kyi had been found guilty of electoral fraud last week and given an additional three years in prison with hard labour.
She had already been found guilty of a number of other offences in secretive military courts, with sentences amounting to a combined 17 years in jail.
“I am very concerned about her health and condemn her sentence for hard labour,” Heyzer said, noting that she had expressed her concerns about Aung San Suu Kyi to coup leader Min Aung Hlaing during their discussion in Naypyidaw in August. She had also asked to meet Aung San Suu Kyi at that time, and called on the coup leaders to allow the 76-year-old to return home.
“I was told there would be a meeting eventually,” she said.
Myanmar was plunged into crisis when the military seized power 18 months ago, just as the country’s new parliament was due to convene for the first time since elections in November 2020.
In the months since, the situation has become increasingly violent with some protesters taking up arms and the military bombing villages and setting fire to civilian homes in an attempt to wipe out resistance to its rule.
Some 2,263 people have been killed since the coup, according to the Assistance Association of Political Prisoners, which has been monitoring the situation. In July the military regime hanged four of its critics in a move that provoked shock around the world.
Heyzer held direct talks with Senior General Min Aung Hlaing when she was in Naypyidaw, her first visit since becoming envoy.
