Aung San Suu Kyi’s son Kim Aris delivered a letter to the Embassy of Myanmar in London, U.K. on Saturday to request visitation rights to see or talk to his mother. He also appealed for her release from prison, where she’s been held incommunicado since the military coup four years ago on Feb. 1, 2021.
Aris posted a video of his visit to the embassy to his social media account. Nobody at the embassy answered the door to accept his letter addressed to regime leader Min Aung Hlaing in Naypyidaw. He placed the letter in the mailbox and read his statement aloud.
“For the military junta in Burma to hold a frail 79-year-old woman in solitary confinement, in jail, for daring to ask for her country’s freedom is not just wrong. As her son, it is also deeply painful. I will never stop fighting for her to be released after her appalling treatment by a military regime, who used trumped up charges to deny her a second term in office and being free to fight in democratic elections. The [junta] fear the will of the people. It is now four years since she was jailed, following decades of loss of freedom. We will never stop fighting for Burma and her people,” said Aris.
Aung San Suu Kyi’s youngest son has been campaigning for his mother’s release from prison, where she’s been serving a 27-year sentence handed down by a military court. He renewed his calls for her release earlier this month ahead of her 80th birthday on June 19.
Aung San Suu Kyi’s legal team has not been allowed to meet with her in Naypyidaw Prison since December 2022, highlighting that the regime has cut off all communication between her and the outside world over the last three years.
Aris told DVB in an interview last year that his mother is suffering from health issues in prison that are being neglected by the authorities, and that he sent her a letter and a care package which was received.
“She basically responded to my letter, sending love to the family and thanking me for what was in the care package,” Aris told DVB in 2024. “She said she’s still got problems with a molar, which is preventing her from being able to eat without considerable pain.”
Last September, Aris met with Pope Francis who has urged the military regime to free Aung San Suu Kyi and has offered her refuge at the Vatican.
In December, three former U.K. foreign secretaries, William Hague, Malcolm Rifkind and Jack Straw, spoke out against Aung San Suu Kyi’s detention and stepped up efforts to advocate for her release in a documentary film by The Independent newspaper called Cancelled: The Rise and Fall of Aung San Suu Kyi, which was released on Dec. 20
Another notable figure to join the call for Aung San Suu Kyi’s release is Toru Kubota, a Japanese filmmaker who was arrested and spent three months at Yangon’s Insein Prison in 2022 with Aung San Suu Kyi’s former economic advisor Sean Turnell. The pair were released together in an amnesty the same year.
“She is the last flame of hope for peace and democracy in Burma. She must be free! The flame must not be allowed to be snuffed out!” Aris concluded.