Italian media reported on Tuesday that Pope Francis has offered asylum to the detained former leader of Myanmar, Aung San Suu Kyi, in the Vatican area.
“I demanded the release of Aung San Suu Kyi and I met her son in Rome, I have offered the Vatican to give her asylum in our territory”, the Pope said, according to the details of a meeting with the Jesuits (members of the Royal Catholic Society) during his visit to Asia earlier this month.
An article by Italian priest Antonio Spadar, published by the daily Corriere della Sera, gives excerpts from these private meetings held in Indonesia, East Timor and Singapore from September 2nd to September 13th.
“We cannot remain silent about the situation in Myanmar, we must do something”, the Pope said, “The future of your country must be peaceful, based on respect for the dignity and rights of all and respect for the democratic system that enables everyone to contribute to the common good.”
78-year-old Suu Kyi is serving a 27-year prison sentence on charges ranging from corruption to not respecting the Covid epidemic restrictions.
In 2015, his National League for Democracy (NLD) won Myanmar’s first democratic elections in 25 years. She was arrested during a military coup in 2021 and according to local media, she is suffering from health problems while in custody.
Suu Kyi, winner of the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize, was once hailed as an icon of human rights.
But in 2017, she became discredited in the eyes of international supporters after she was accused of doing nothing to stop the army’s repression of the country’s mainly Rohingya minority.
According to Rohingya refugees in the neighboring country of Bangladesh, this oppression is the subject of the ongoing genocide of the United Nations and the persecution is still ongoing.
Mainly Buddhist Myanmar has been in turmoil since the 2021 coup. Here the junta government is fighting both established ethnic rebel groups and new pro-democracy forces.
