Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi gets 3 years jail

NAYPYIDAW: A special Myanmar military court on Thursday sentenced the country's deposed leader Aung San Suu Kyi and members of her economic team to three years in jail. San Suu Kyi's team included Australian economist Sean Turnell who was imprisoned for violating the Official Secrets Act, The Irrawaddy news website reported. The latest verdict delivered at a special court means that San Suu Kyi has been sentenced to over 20 years in prison so far in a dozen cases.

Turnell, a former key economic adviser to Suu Kyi, was detained by the Mynamar military shortly after last year's coup, which ousted the National League for Democracy (NLD) government. Since staging a coup in February last year, the Myanmar military has carried out a brutal nationwide crackdown on millions of people protesting its rule.

Rights groups say the junta security forces' mass killings, arbitrary arrests, torture, sexual violence, and other abuses against protesters, journalists, health workers, and political opposition members amount to crimes against humanity.

Earlier this month, UN experts said human rights defenders documenting and responding to atrocities by Myanmar's military junta urgently need comprehensive support, including financial, and called on the international community to end apparent indifference to the violence targeting the country's population.

"In the face of inaction by the international community, and with human rights violations continuing to be perpetrated on a daily basis by the military junta, human rights defenders are persisting in their support for those targeted and working to preserve the possibility of justice in the future," said Mary Lawlor, UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders. Along with Tom Andrews, Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar, Lawlor highlighted the grave risks defenders face and the specific challenges confronting women human rights defenders. (ANI)

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