The Myanmar junta barred jailed popular leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi from attending Wednesday’s commemoration of Martyrs’ Day, which honors of her father—assassinated independence hero General Aung San—and his slain colleagues, while continuing to deny the event state-level status, a policy it revived from previous regimes.
Martyrs’ Day marks an important event on the Myanmar calendar, commemorating the assassinations of Gen. Aung San and eight colleagues on July 19, 1947.
Daw Aung San Suu Kyi has not been allowed to mark the annual event since the military seized power in a coup in February 2021. Nor has junta boss Min Aung Hlaing attended the Martyrs’ Day commemoration. Last year’s event was attended by deputy junta chief Soe Win. But this year, the regime downgraded the event, sending only Deputy Prime Minister and Transportation Minister Tin Aung San to attend.
Under the National League for Democracy government, Martyrs’ Day was celebrated as a national event attended by the head of state. Min Aung Hlaing and then Vice-President Myint Swe (who has been serving as acting president of the regime) joined Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and then President U Win Myint at the annual ceremony from 2016 to 2020.
The NLD revived Martyrs’ Day as a state-level event in 2016 after winning the general election the previous year. Min Aung Hlaing attended, becoming the first army chief to join the annual ceremony since the student-led uprisings of 1988.
The first Martyrs’ Day event after the coup was attended by the junta’s religious affairs and culture minister. By sending a relatively minor official, the regime downgraded the event, just as its predecessors, the State Law and Order Restoration Council and the State Peace and Development Council, had done.
At the 2021 and 2022 events, a member of the committee for organizing Martyrs’ Day and a department head of the Yangon City Development Committee laid wreaths at the Martyrs’ Mausoleum in Yangon for Gen. Aung San on behalf of his family members.
Under former military dictator Than Shwe, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi was allowed to attend the Martyrs’ Day ceremonies though the event was downgraded from state level and only attended by the Yangon mayor or the culture minister.
Though Daw Aung San Suu Kyi was not allowed to attend this year’s event, her elder brother, 80-year-old U Aung San Oo, was present.
While Daw Aung San Suu Kyi was behind bars in Naypyitaw Prison, Myanmar’s junta-controlled Supreme Court in August last year approved the sale of her family home in Yangon, accepting a petition from her older brother U Aung San Oo to sell the house.
The lakeside villa in Yangon was the source of a bitter family dispute between the siblings for decades. In 2000, U Aung San Oo sued his sister, who was then under house arrest, claiming that the house was his.
The 78-year-old Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, who is being held in solitary confinement in Naypyitaw Prison, has been sentenced to a total of 33 years in prison.
Resistance forces staged anti-junta protests in Yangon, Mandalay, Monywa, Hpakant, Magwe, Gangaw and elsewhere to mark Martyrs’ Day.
