NNA - In response to the sentencing of Aung San Suu Kyi to four years in prison, Amnesty International’s Deputy Regional Director for Campaigns Ming Yu Hah said: 

“The harsh sentences handed down to Aung San Suu Kyi on these bogus charges are the latest example of the military’s determination to eliminate all opposition and suffocate freedoms in Myanmar. The court’s farcical and corrupt decision is part of a devastating pattern of arbitrary punishment that has seen more than 1,300 people killed and thousands arrested since the military coup in February. 

“There are many detainees without the profile of Aung San Suu Kyi who currently face the terrifying prospect of years behind bars simply for peacefully exercising their human rights. They must not be forgotten and left to their fate. 

“As violence escalates, displacing tens of thousands of people and setting up a humanitarian crisis in the middle of an ongoing pandemic, the situation in Myanmar today is alarming in the extreme. Without a decisive, unified and swift international response this can and will get worse.   

“The international community must step up to protect civilians and hold perpetrators of grave violations to account, and ensure humanitarian and health assistance is granted as a matter of utmost urgency. The country’s healthcare system is in tatters, the economy is on a precipice, and food shortages loom. The world cannot sit back and defer to ASEAN — states must act now to ensure an end to unlawful killings, arbitrary detention, torture and other gross violations, and to the decades-long pattern of impunity that has led us to where we are today. 

“It is shameful that ASEAN has yet to fully implement its emergency consensus after more than half a year. Other than blocking military leader Min Aung Hlaing from attending a handful of meetings, ASEAN has remained shockingly weak as the Myanmar military continues to crush peaceful dissent, sow destruction, and wipe out freedom of expression.”-Amnesty International 

===============R.H.