After spending some time at an undisclosed ministerial residence in Naypyitaw following her transfer to house arrest in July, Myanmar’s detained leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi is now reportedly back in prison, according to senior members of her National League for Democracy party.
It’s not known when the regime sent her back to prison. Prison sources said the 78-year-old was unwell last week, suffering a serious toothache and unable to eat. She was also vomiting and felt dizzy.
Her request to see an outside dentist was denied by prison authorities but she received some medications, VOA Burmese reported.
A regime spokesperson told media organizations the detained leader was fine and receiving treatment.
The Irrawaddy understands that the detained leader was sent back to solitary confinement in Naypyitaw Prison sometime after her meeting with Thai Foreign Minister Don Pramudwinai in July.
On July 9, she was taken out of the prison to meet Don— her first known meeting with a foreign envoy since she was detained following the 2021 military coup.
A few days later, Don revealed the meeting at a summit of Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) foreign ministers in Jakarta, claiming that Myanmar’s detained leader had called for talks to solve the crisis brought about by the coup. It has not been possible to independently confirm what message she conveyed to Don and ASEAN, however. Suu Kyi knew Don when she was Myanmar’s foreign minister and State Counselor.
The meeting was private and lasted “over one hour”, a spokesperson for the Thai Ministry of Foreign Affairs told AFP.
The former State Counselor was sentenced to 33 years in prison for a multitude of alleged offenses in a series of closed trials held by the military regime. She was arrested in February 2021 when the military launched a coup against her elected government. She denies wrongdoing. The regime cut six years from her sentence as part of a general amnesty in early August.
Opposition sources familiar with people close to Suu Kyi said the detained leader has kept aware of the country’s situation and opposition movements inside and outside the country. Last year, a former political prisoner who met her several times in the prison compound recalled that she was encouraged to learn of the resistance movement and had asked close contacts to reach out to her allies overseas.
Sources said the regime’s newly appointed Home Affairs Minister Lieutenant General Yar Pyaw visited her in prison last week, but The Irrawaddy was unable to independently confirm this.
The lieutenant general was involved in Myanmar’s peace process, along with the country’s ethnic armed organizations and Suu Kyi, when she was Myanmar’s State Counselor before the coup.
