‘Myanmar is under the yoke of a pariah regime’: Calls grow in UK for release of Aung San Suu Kyi from prison
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Two former UK foreign ministers join call for action after Lord Hague told Independent documentary it is possible to be critical of former Myanmar leader ‘but also say we should be campaigning for her release’. Calls are growing in the UK for Aung San Suu Kyi to be released from prison where she has been held for the last four years by Myanmar’s military regime.
![[Andrew Mitchell said her imprisonment was ‘further evidence Myanmar is being ruled by an internationally condemned junta with neither legitimacy nor humanity.”]](https://static.independent.co.uk/s3fs-public/thumbnails/image/2015/05/24/21/Andrew-Mitchell-Getty.jpg)
Former foreign ministers Andrew Mitchell and Sir Alan Duncan said her detention meant that the military junta could carry on its horrifc human rights abuses on its people unchecked. Ms Suu Kyi - the former democratically elected leader of Myanmar who has become a deeply controversial figure after refusing to speak out against her country’s extreme violence against its Rohingya Muslim minority - is 79 and in poor health.
![[Sir Alan Duncan (Matt Dunham/PA) described her as ‘one great hope’ for her country]](https://static.independent.co.uk/2024/04/04/17/6f5affde3f03b860f69353b642ad8a11Y29udGVudHNlYXJjaGFwaSwxNzEyMzMwNjk2-2.37468439.jpg)
Mr Mitchell, ex-foreign minister and former deputy foreign secretary, said that ”many will condemn” the stances she took over the Rohingya Muslim minority in Myanmar and the violence they faced. But, he added: “Locking up the elected leader in such harsh conditions by an illegitimate military cabal is a monstrous repetition of their illegal behaviour and underlines that Myanmar continues to be under the yoke of a pariah regime”.
Ms Suu Kyi’s fall from grace is explored in a new Independent TV documentary, Cancelled: The rise and fall of Aung San Suu Kyi, which takes an unbiased look at her life and the plight of Myanmar. “Her current imprisonment in harsh conditions is outrageous and yet further evidence that Myanmar is being ruled by an internationally condemned junta with neither legitimacy nor humanity.”.
