2LT International News

LONDON, U.K.: Myanmar’s jailed former leader Aung San Suu Kyi is suffering from worsening heart problems and urgently requires medical treatment, her son has said, in a fresh appeal for her release from what he described as “cruel and life-threatening” custody.

In an interview with Reuters late last week, Kim Aris, who lives in Britain, said his 80-year-old mother has been detained incommunicado since the February 2021 coup that toppled her elected government. He said Suu Kyi requested to see a cardiologist more than a month ago, but it was unclear whether military authorities granted that request.

“At this point, I can’t even confirm if my mother is alive,” Aris said.

Beyond her heart condition, Suu Kyi has also been struggling with dental and bone problems, according to her son. He added that she may have sustained injuries in the powerful March earthquake that devastated parts of Myanmar and killed more than 3,700 people. In a Facebook video, Aris urged not only his mother’s release but also the freedom of all political prisoners held by the junta.

The military, however, has denied that Suu Kyi’s health is failing. Spokesman Zaw Min Tun told state television that reports of illness were fabricated to divert attention from junta chief Min Aung Hlaing’s recent visit to China, where he met President Xi Jinping and attended a military parade.

“Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s health is good,” he insisted. “They are fabricating this information because our Myanmar leader is doing many activities in China, and they want to hide this news.”

Suu Kyi, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate and longtime figurehead of Myanmar’s pro-democracy struggle, has been serving a 27-year sentence on charges ranging from incitement to corruption and election fraud, all of which she denies. Her last known public appearance was in May 2021, when state television broadcast footage of her in a courtroom, sitting in the dock with her hands folded in her lap and wearing a surgical mask.

The February 2021 military takeover plunged Myanmar into deep turmoil. After security forces brutally crushed mass street protests, a nationwide armed resistance movement emerged, leaving the country locked in civil conflict. The generals have justified the coup by alleging fraud in the 2020 general election, which Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) won in a landslide. Independent monitors, however, found no evidence of irregularities.

International governments and rights groups have repeatedly demanded Suu Kyi’s release, saying her imprisonment is politically motivated. The military-backed interim administration has announced plans to stage multi-phase elections beginning later this year, the first since the disputed 2020 vote. Yet most opposition groups, including the NLD, have been barred from participating, and Western officials have dismissed the planned polls as a bid to cement military control.

Over the decades, Suu Kyi has spent nearly 20 years in detention, including some 15 years under house arrest at her lakeside home in Yangon. Her current imprisonment, her family says, is her harshest yet — with no confirmed public sightings in more than three years, growing health concerns, and little sign of relief as Myanmar’s crisis deepens.