Starmer urged to intervene in Myanmar rights ‘tragedy'

Commission details junta's 'inhumanity' against civilians

- KATE DEVLIN

Sir Keir Starmer has been urged to personally intervene in the "unspeakable tragedy" developing in Myanmar and to meet the British son of Aung San Suu Kyi, who has been imprisoned by the country’s military junta.

The call comes in a new report that highlights the plight of Ms Suu Kyi and 22,000 other political prisoners, after a coup that overthrew her democratically elected government four years ago. It also shines a spotlight on the army’s airstrikes and ground attacks against civilians and details atrocities including massacres, beheadings, executions, rapes and tortures.

Nobel Peace Prize winner Ms Suu Kyi, who is facing 27 years in jail, became a deeply divisive and controversial figure after refusing to speak out on her country’s extreme violence against its Rohingya Muslim minority.

In an Independent TV documentary about her fall from grace, titled Cancelled: The Rise and Fall of Aung San Suu Kyi, William Hague, who welcomed her to London in 2012 said it was possible to be critical of the country’s former leader, “but also say we should be campaigning for her release”.