Suu Kyi Has Gone More Than 5 Years Without Family Contact, Son Says

Aung San Suu Kyi, 81, has not spoken to her family in more than five years, according to her son, who reached her by phone for the first time since her 2021 detention. The former Myanmar leader has been held in a fenced residence in Naypyidaw with scrubby land around it, and the caller was told nothing about when she might be released.

Kim Aris was permitted to speak with his mother on Thursday at Myanmar's embassy in London. He said he does not believe anyone other than military or police personnel has been near her, and described the call as part of a public relations effort by the country's military leaders. Min Aung Hlaing, who led the 2021 coup, has sought to rebuild diplomatic ties abroad and swapped his military fatigues for civilian clothes after an April election that was widely condemned as a sham.

Aris said his mother remained in good physical and mental condition. "She still sounds certainly all there mentally, and physically she sounds strong," he said. He added that she is not permitted newspapers, radio or television, and that she remains completely shut off from the rest of the world.

Activists have demanded proof of life for Suu Kyi and other political prisoners. A Red Cross visit in August produced a photograph of her, and a government spokesperson released images last week showing her in a wood-panelled room as officials handed over two gardening books given by Britain's King Charles; a paper calendar on the wall showed the date. Aris described such photo opportunities as familiar stunts the regime has used before to suggest his mother is being treated fairly. "She's been locked up for five years on trumped-up, politically motivated charges and she should be free," he said.

The daughter of assassinated independence hero Gen Aung San has been in and out of house arrest since the late 1980s for leading pro-democracy movements. Myanmar's brief democratic opening after a 2015 election her party won overwhelmingly made her state counsellor under a civilian-military power-sharing arrangement. Her standing fell after the mass killings and expulsions of Rohingya Muslims in 2016 and 2017; at the International Court of Justice in The Hague she acknowledged military units might have used "disproportionate force" but defended the government against genocide accusations.

Aris said his mother was never silent on the Rohingya crisis, and that what she said about it could fill volumes. He noted that under her leadership Myanmar began a domestic inquiry and appointed former UN chief Kofi Annan to lead a commission, and that she was always walking on a tightrope as state counsellor because the army could remove her power at any time. He said global public support for his mother has dwindled since the Rohingya crisis, and that the whole country now suffers from a lack of international attention. The 2021 takeover triggered a civil war that conflict monitors say has killed more than 100,000 people.