NAYPYDAW — Myanmar’s junta chief-turned-president on Thursday ordered deposed leader Aung San Suu Kyi to be moved to house arrest, five years after her detention following a coup, the country’s state media has reported.A statement from the office of Min Aung Hlaing said he had “commuted the remaining sentence” of Suu Kyi “to be served at the designated residence”.The office also shared a photograph showing Suu Kyi sitting flanked by two men – one in a khaki shirt and another in a police uniform.It was not immediately clear where she will be moved, but a senior source from her dissolved National League for Democracy (NLD) party told AFP she would likely be kept sequestered at an address in the capital Naypyidaw.The 80-year-old Nobel laureate has been held in detention, probably in a military prison in the capital, since she was removed from office in a military coup in 2021.Suu Kyi came to power in 2015 after Myanmar’s then rulers introduced democratic reforms. Before that, she spent decades of military rule as a pro-democracy activist, and was previously held for more than 15 years under house arrest.State media broadcast a picture of her sitting with two uniformed personnel.Her son Kim Aris said he was skeptical about the announcement and that he did not even have proof that she was alive. He said the picture was “meaningless” as it was taken in 2022.”I hope this is true. I still haven’t seen any real evidence to show that she has been moved,” he told the BBC.”So, until I’m allowed communication with her, or somebody can independently verify her condition and her whereabouts, then I won’t believe anything.”Prior to the announcement, nothing was known about her health or living conditions, and Kim Aris said in December he had not heard from her in years.Her legal team told Reuters they had had no direct notification about her house arrest.Little has been seen from Suu Kyi since she was arrested on the day the armed forces ousted her elected government more than five years ago.Her lawyers have not seen her for more than three years; her family has had no contact with her for more than two.The only image of her seen before Thursday was at a court appearance in May 2021, at the start of a series of trials by the military on charges which have been widely dismissed as fabricated.Since then, her 33-year sentence has been reduced several times.Her sudden appearance in state media suggests the military authorities may be preparing for further changes in her status, possibly her partial or complete release.Min Aung Hlaing is eager to end his regime’s international isolation, and appears more confident after a string of battlefield wins against armed opposition groups.The military junta also held an election earlier this year restoring a notionally democratic government, but which leaves the same military leaders in charge.”The military regime that rules Myanmar is very much on a [public relations] offensive at the moment,” Sean Turnell, the former economic adviser to Suu Kyi, told the BBC’s Newsday programme.He added that Myanmar’s military was “trying to convince the world that it’s a legitimate government”, and the reports of Aung San Suu Kyi’s relocation to house arrest were “part and parcel of that”.While Turnell said he was “really hopeful” the reports were true, he has “got a lot of doubts”.Turnell, an Australian economist, was detained alongside Myanmar’s democratically elected leaders for more than a year after the 2021 military coup.During that time, he was kept in the same prison as Suu Kyi, where conditions were “medieval” and “just really really awful”, Turnell recalled, adding that the food and medical care were “bad” and the cells were “open to the elements”.With Suu Kyi now 80 years old, those are “terrible conditions for her”, Turnell said.During her earlier confinement, Suu Kyi’s dignified, non-violent resistance won her admirers across Myanmar and around the world, and she famously made speeches to supporters from her family home. She won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991.But her decision to lead Myanmar’s defense against charges of genocide at the International Court of Justice over the military’s atrocities against Muslim Rohingyas in 2017 badly tarnished her saint-like international image.
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