RANGOON: Myanmar police have filed charges against overthrown leader Aung San Suu Kyi for illegally importing communications equipment and sought her detention until February 15 for investigations, according to a police document.
The Nobel laureate was overthrown and detained by Myanmar’s army, which cut short a transition to democracy in a takeover that has drawn condemnation from the United States and other Western countries.
The police filed a request with a court detailing the accusations against 75-year-old Aung San Suu Kyi, claiming that walkie-talkie radios had been found in a search of her home in the capital, Naypyidaw. It said the radios were imported illegally and used without permission.
The document reviewed on Wednesday requested Aung San Suu Kyi’s detention “in order to question witnesses, request evidence and seek legal counsel after questioning the defendant”.
A separate document showed that the had police filed charges against overthrown President Win Myint for offences under the Disaster Management Law.
Reporting from Yangon, Al Jazeera’s Ali Fowle said that Myanmar’s import-export act was “notoriously vague”.
“It could be anything from a fax machine to a walkie-talkie. It’s a notorious law because it was used under the former military regime all the time to imprison political prisoners,” said Fowle.
“There was a lot of criticism for the NLD [National League for Democracy] for not changing that law when they came to power because many of their members have been imprisoned under it,” she added.
The police, the government and the court were not immediately available for comment, reported Reuters.
Aung San Suu Kyi’s NLD party said earlier in a statement that its offices had been raided in several regions and urged authorities to stop what it called unlawful acts.
Army chief Min Aung Hlaing seized power, alleging fraud in a November 8 election, which the NLD won in a landslide. The electoral commission has said the vote was fair.
Meanwhile, the Group of Seven largest world economies condemned the coup on Wednesday and said the election result must be respected.
“We call upon the military to immediately end the state of emergency, restore power to the democratically-elected government, to release all those unjustly detained and to respect human rights and the rule of law,” the G7 said in a statement.
Aung San Suu Kyi endured about 15 years of house arrest between 1989 and 2010 as she led the country’s democracy movement. She remains hugely popular at home despite damage to her international reputation over the persecution of the Rohingya minority that culminated in nearly one million of them fleeing for their safety in 2017.
More than 700,000 Rohingya people were forced to flee to neighbouring Bangladesh in the wake of a brutal military crackdown that the UN said was executed with “genocidal intent”.
People in Myanmar’s largest city Yangon said they would show their opposition to the military coup by banging on pots and pans again on Wednesday night.
Tuesday’s sustained, nocturnal cacophony was the first public sign of protest against Monday’s power grab that reinstalled the generals in total control after a brief period of elective democracy.
People all over Yangon and other cities and towns across the country joined in, leaning out of doors, on balconies or just within their own sitting rooms as part of a campaign of civil disobedience urged by Aung San Suu Kyi.
“It is likely to see more [civil disobedience] happening,” reported Fowle. “We’ve already seen government staff – including hospital staff in Myanmar – saying that they are not going to go to work, they refuse to work under the military.
“What they’re trying to show the military regime is that they are not willing to work for them,” she added.
