Leaked footage and prison logs reveal Aung San Suu Kyi’s life in detention

Rare footage of Aung San Suu Kyi inside a Myanmar courtroom and detailed records of her daily prison routine have been seen by the Guardian, offering a glimpse into the life of the country’s ousted civilian leader as she nears her 80th birthday.

Since the military seized power in February 2021, little has been seen or heard of Aung San Suu Kyi, who led Myanmar for six years before her arrest. She is held in solitary confinement with access to the outside world strictly controlled and only rare supervised visits from her legal team.

The videos, dated August and December 2022, show Aung San Suu Kyi appearing in a makeshift courtroom with deposed president Win Myint during military-run corruption trials that were condemned by the UN, US and EU as politically motivated. The cases contributed to her 33-year prison sentence.

The footage and logs – shown to the Guardian by military defector group People’s Embrace – shed light on her condition and routine, amid concerns from her family and supporters that her health has seriously deteriorated and her life may be at risk.

The logs cover a handful of days in January and February 2024 and detail a regimented life inside a specially built detention facility in Naypyidaw, the capital, in which she remains isolated from the outside world and the violent civil war engulfing her country.

A Myanmar prison source, unaffiliated with the group, who last saw her in early 2024 confirmed the material.

“Her voice and way of walking remained unchanged,” said the source. “She has stopped wearing flowers in her hair – partly because she doesn’t want to.”

Medical concerns

The records raise concerns about Aung San Suu Kyi’s health and detail the medications she receives for a range of issues.

Dr Aung Kyaw, 30, a former political prisoner jailed for treating anti-coup protesters, described her care as “rudimentary and basic”.

“It addresses only the symptoms, not the root causes,” he said, adding that poor nutrition, lack of sunlight, and the risk of dehydration and heatstroke during central Myanmar’s sweltering summer could worsen her health. The records show that on at least one day the temperature in her room reached 31C.

He added she might be especially vulnerable to Covid-19, tuberculosis and skin infections, which are common in Myanmar’s prisons.

“The health implications of keeping someone who’s almost 80 in confined space and isolation, and cutting her connection with family and friends, can have a very heavy toll on her physical and mental health.”

Meditation, reading, isolation

Logs show her days as beginning at 4.30am and ending about 8.30pm. She meditates for over an hour each morning and walks around the room for evening exercise, using Buddhist prayer beads throughout the day.

In one entry, she is recorded having a lunch of “two spoons of rice, chicken, fish balls soup, two pieces of chocolate, and a piece of dragon fruit” – her largest meal of the day.

Meals in general are sparse: “two half-fried eggs” for breakfast; small portions of rice, meat or fish for lunch; soup and bread for dinner.

Aung San Suu Kyi receives junta-controlled newspapers, providing some awareness of the civil war engulfing the country since 2021.

Within days of her detention, peaceful protests erupted across Myanmar, but were violently suppressed by the military. In their wake emerged civilian resistance groups, some backed by ethnic armies that have fought for borderland autonomy for decades. The conflict has claimed thousands of lives, with the military accused of widespread atrocities.

Aung San Suu Kyi has spent decades under some form of military detention; from 1989 to 2010 she was under house arrest at her family’s lakeside Yangon home because of her outspoken opposition to the military junta ruling Myanmar at that time.

Source & read more: theguardian.com