– State of emergency extended for six months
The ruling junta has decided to extend the state of emergency, in force since the February 2021 coup, by six months.
The ruling army has extended for another six months the state of emergency in Burma, in force since the February 2021 coup, official media said on Monday.
Junta leader Min Aung Hlaing, in place since the putsch, asked members of the military government “to leave him in office for six more months”, until February 2023, according to the Global New Light of Myanmar. The eleven members of the National Defense and Security Council “supported his proposal unanimously”, the state daily reported. The junta declared a state of emergency, which gives it full powers, in the wake of the February 1, 2021 coup that overthrew civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi.
The army justified its putsch by citing massive fraud in the general elections won by Aung San Suu Kyi’s pro-democracy party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), in November 2020. It also promised a new vote within a year. As the country was mired in civil conflict, she later renewed her commitment and assured that the state of emergency would be lifted by August 2023.
In a speech broadcast Monday morning, Min Aung Hlaing did not mention a date. He said Burma first needed to be “peaceful and stable” to hold elections. The general spoke of a “reform” of the electoral system, replacing the single-member majority ballot which favored the LND, with a proportional mode.
The Burmese junta, regularly accused of atrocities, continues a bloody repression once morest its opponents with more than 2,000 civilians killed and more than 15,000 arrested since the coup, according to a local NGO. Arrested at the time of the putsch, the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize winner, Aung San Suu Kyi, 77, faces several charges that might earn her up to 150 years in prison in total.
AFP
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