As of Wednesday the Burmese democracy campaigner Aung San Suu Kyi will have spent a total of 20 years in detention in Myanmar, five of them since her government was overthrown by a military coup in February 2021.
Almost nothing is known about her state of health, or the conditions she is living in, although she is presumed to be held in a military prison in the capital Nay Pyi Taw. "For all I know she could be dead," her son Kim Aris said last month, although a spokesman for the ruling military junta insisted she is in good health.
She has not seen her lawyers for at least two years, nor is she known to have seen anyone else except prison personnel. After the coup she was given jail sentences totalling 27 years on what are widely viewed as fabricated charges.
Yet despite her disappearance from public view, she still casts a long shadow over Myanmar.
There are repeated calls for her release, along with appeals to the generals to end their ruinous campaign against the armed opposition and negotiate an end to the civil war that has now dragged on for five years.
