Nearly four years after Myanmar’s military junta deposed former leader Aung San Suu Kyi and placed her in custody, her son now warns of her deteriorating health and calls for her release.
Speaking to Reuters, Kim Aris said that his mother, 80, had requested to see a cardiologist last month, but he could not confirm if the request had been granted.
“Without proper medical examinations… it is impossible to know what state her heart is in,” Aris told Reuters. “I am extremely worried. There is no way of verifying if she is even alive.”
In addition to possible heart problems, Aris also said that Suu Kyi suffered bone and gum issues, likely caused from injuries during the March earthquake that took the lives of more than 3,700 people.
Speaking to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), he also tried sending “care packages and letters,” only to get no response due to military pressure.
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“She’s 80 years old,” Aris said. “She’s locked up in some hellhole in [Myanmar]. I’m worried she might die any day if she’s not dead already.”
According to military spokesman Zaw Min Tun, speaking on state broadcaster Myanmar Radio and Television (MRTV), Suu Kyi’s “health is good,” dismissing reports of her condition as attempts to divert attention from military chief Min Aung Hlaing’s trip to China, where he met President Xi Jinping and joined a military parade, Reuters wrote.
“They are fabricating this information because we are in China and our Myanmar leader is doing so many activities and they want to hide this news,” he said.
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Aung San Suu Kyi in custody
Daughter to Burmese independence leader Aung San, Suu Kyi had been imprisoned by the military once before, from 1989 to 2010. However, this time might be direr than the last.
Since the military coup in February 2021, Suu Kyi had been in military custody, shut off from the outside world. Convicted of 19 charges, including corruption, she was sentenced to 33 years in prison, though it was later reduced to 27.
She had not been seen since. One source associated with Suu Kyi’s legal team told Radio Free Asia (RFA) that she was in the capital’s Naypyidaw Prison.
Last year, Aris told RFA that he did receive the first letter from her since 2022.
Earlier in June, the Guardian reported on leaked footage of Suu Kyi being held inside a courtroom, providing the world a peek into her life in prison. Dated August and December 2022, the videos showed the Nobel Peace Prize laureate with deposed president Win Myint in corruption trials run by the military. These trials added to her 33-year prison sentence.
Dr. Aung Kyaw, former political prisoner imprisoned for aiding protesters against the military coup of 2021, told The Guardian that Suu Kyi’s care is “rudimentary and basic.”
“It addresses only the symptoms, not the root causes,” he said, warning that inadequate nutrition, limited sunlight, and the dangers of dehydration and heatstroke during central Myanmar’s intense summer could further endanger her health. Records indicated that on at least one occasion, the temperature in her room rose to 31°C.
Worse, she may also be more vulnerable to COVID-19.
“The health implications of keeping someone who’s almost 80 in confined space and isolation, and cutting her connection with family and friends, can have a very heavy toll on her physical and mental health,” Dr. Aung Kyaw said.
