Aung San Suu Kyi’s son confirms meeting Pope Francis
Kim Aris, the son of jailed State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi, confirmed to DVB that he met with Pope Francis during a trip to the Vatican in 2023. He revealed this after the pope called on the military regime to immediately release his mother, who’s been held incommunicado in the capital Naypyidaw since the coup on Feb. 1, 2021.
“I had the privilege of meeting Pope Francis during my trip to Italy last year. I am sure that [my mother] would express her gratitude to Pope Francis for urging the military junta to release her and his proposal to the Vatican to offer her refuge. Nonetheless, I am doubtful that the junta would take such a request into account, as they remain fearful of [her] popularity among the Burmese people,” Aris told DVB.
He added that the 79-year-old Aung San Suu Kyi is not under house arrest, as had previously been reported by the media. Aris believes that his mother remains in solitary confinement at Naypyidaw Prison “to ensure she has no contact with, nor visibility to, the other prisoners held there.” Aung San Suu Kyi is serving a 27 year prison sentence.
Protest against migrants from Burma in Thailand
Around 20 Thai citizens held a demonstration against Burmese migrant workers outside the Burma Embassy in Bangkok, Thailand on Monday. The protesters claimed that undocumented Burma nationals could pose a threat to Thailand’s sovereignty and national security, Thai media reported.
“This protest does not represent the views of the majority of Thais. There are factors fueling negative sentiments, such as Thailand’s economic crisis, job shortages, and the perception that Burmese migrants are involved in work that migrants are barred from [in Thailand],” Moe Gyo, the chairperson of the Joint Action Committee for Burma Affairs (JACBA), told DVB.
The protest this week followed the closure of at least six migrant education centers for Burmese children living in Thailand. Earlier this month, three Thai civil society groups reportedly sent a letter to the government urging it to implement stricter requirements to become a Thai citizen, and to prevent pregnant women workers from three countries, including Burma, from giving birth in the country.
‘Ek Khaale’ the Rohingya storytelling project
The Ek Khaale visual restoration project was started by documentary photographer Greg Constantine and the Rohingya community in 2020. Ek Khaale means “Once Upon a Time” in the Rohingya language. It was launched in collaboration with Rohingya living inside Burma, as well as in the Bangladesh refugee camps, and the diaspora living in the U.S., U.K., Canada, Malaysia and Europe.
“It took a year of basically sifting through, analyzing, deconstructing this huge, massive block of raw materials that had been collected through and contributed by the Rohingya and that I had found in archives. Then [I tried] to chisel away at it to try to tell a narrative. And that’s how these nine chapters of the project were constructed to show different slices of time. And using the different visual materials that we had found,” he told DVB.
Constantine has been documenting and photographing the persecution faced by the Rohingya in Burma since 2006. Ek Khaale is a storytelling project and historical narrative that counters the disinformation spread by successive military regimes about the Rohingya community in northern Arakan State, where the U.N. cites that 630,000 of them live without access to citizenship and freedom of movement.
News by Region
SHAN—Several buildings, including a school, were destroyed during retaliatory airstrikes carried out by the Burma Air Force in northern Shan State’s Lashio Township, which is under the control of the Brotherhood Alliance’s Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA), on Wednesday. No casualties were reported.
“It happened close to us. Even the light bulbs fell [from the ceiling],” a Lashio resident told DVB. One person was killed and at least nine others were injured in a similar attack on Sept. 24. The MNDAA took full control of Lashio after it seized the Northeast Regional Military Command (RMC) headquarters on Aug. 3.
Local sources in Lashio told DVB that the military arrested 430 people, as well as 83 Chinese nationals, during a raid on a cyber scam center in the Mingala Muse housing compound in Muse Township, located near the Burma-China border, on Sept. 23. One soldier was confirmed killed during a shootout between the military and a militia guarding the cyber scam center.
“The military attempted to negotiate with the militia when it was trying to arrest the online scammers. However, the negotiations failed, leading to a shootout,” a Muse resident told DVB. A source from the regime’s Muse District administration said that the militia guarding the cyber scam center had an unknown number of casualties.
MON—Two members of the military-proxy Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) were killed by armed men in a village of Kyaikto Township, located around 93 miles (150 km) north of the Mon State capital Mawlamyine, on Monday. The men reportedly entered their house at night and shot them.
“We don’t know which group was responsible. There was a blackout when it happened. We only heard the gunfire,” a Kyaikto resident told DVB. The Kyaikto People’s Defense Force (PDF) denied responsibility for the attack. An attorney from the Thaton District Court and her husband were killed in a similar attack in Thaton on Sept. 21.
YANGON—Residents in several townships have been forced to leave their homes due to flooding since Sept. 21. “The [Yangon] river hasn’t flooded yet, but it has been raining non-stop,” a Yangon resident told DVB. The regime’s Meteorology Department has issued a warning for more rain in Yangon.
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