MYANMAR PUTSCHISTS SLAP MINOR CASE VS AUNG SAN SUU KYI

Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the Myanmar civilian leader deposed by the military in a coup, was charged on Wednesday with an obscure infraction: Having illegally imported at least 10 walkie-talkies, according to an official from her National League for Democracy (NLD) party.

The violation can be punishable by up to three years in prison, Hannah Beech reported for the New York Times.

It was a bizarre postscript to a fraught 48 hours in which the army placed the country’s most popular leader back under house arrest and extinguished hopes that the Southeast Asian nation could one day serve as a beacon of democracy in a world awash with rising authoritarianism.

The surprise use of walkie-talkies to justify locking up a Nobel Peace Prize laureate reinforced the military’s penchant for using fine-grained strategy to neutralize its greatest political rival.

The country’s ousted president is also facing jail time for alleged violations of coronavirus restrictions.

The court order to detain Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi, provided by officials from the party that governed Myanmar until the putsch on Monday, was dated on the day of the coup and authorized her detention for 15 days.

The document said soldiers searching her villa in Naypyidaw, the capital, had turned up various pieces of communications equipment that had been brought into the country without proper paperwork.

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