Blinken condemned Aung San Suu Kyi Myanmar’s new 3 year term
Aung San Suu Kyi, the deposed elected leader of Myanmar, was given a second three-year term on Friday, and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken condemned it and demanded increased pressure on the military government.
Blinken, using the previous name for Myanmar, said, “We strongly condemn the Burma military regime’s unjust sentencing of Aung San Suu Kyi to 3 more years in prison, including hard labor.
The growing violence and repression of democratically elected leaders in Burma must stop, and we must cooperate to hold the regime accountable.
The Nobel Prize winner and representative of democracy Aung San Suu Kyi now faces a cumulative sentence of 20 years in prison after the most recent ruling, which was made behind closed doors.
The latest sentence related to alleged electoral fraud in the resounding victory her party had in the 2020 elections.
Her supporters claim that the military’s accusations of corruption, which led to her removal and detention the following February, are unfounded.
Since the coup, the United States and other Western countries have put Myanmar’s junta under a number of sanctions, but to little effect.
After the regime murdered four democracy advocates in July, the United States promised to take additional action. However, it has refrained from taking the crucial step of imposing sanctions on its oil and gas industry due to resistance from Thailand, which imports energy from its neighbor.
