Aung San Suu Kyi: The Myanmar democracy icon detained for years

Aung San Suu Kyi: The Myanmar democracy icon detained for years43 minutes agoShareSaveAdd as preferred on GoogleGetty ImagesFormer Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who has been held in detention since a military coup in 2021, has been moved to house arrest, the country's state media reported.Little has been heard from the 80-year-old Nobel laureate since she was arrested on the day the armed forces ousted her elected government more than five years ago.She was charged with a raft of criminal offences, including corruption. She denies all of the accusations and rights groups have condemned the series of secret trials as a sham.Having spent nearly15 years in detention between 1989 and 2010, Suu Kyi was once seen as a beacon for human rights, a principled activist who gave up her freedom to challenge the ruthless army generals who have ruled Myanmar for decades.Her personal struggle to bring democracy to Myanmar (also known as Burma) made her an international symbol of peaceful resistance in the face of oppression.But her decision later on to defend Myanmar against charges of genocide over the military's atrocities against Muslim Rohingyas badly tarnished her saint-like international image.From behind bars, Aung San Suu Kyi casts a long shadow over MyanmarPolitical pedigreeSuu Kyi is the daughter of Myanmar's independence hero, General Aung San.He was assassinated when she was only two years old, just before Myanmar gained independence from British colonial rule in 1948.In 1960 she went to India with her mother Daw Khin Kyi, who had been appointed Myanmar's ambassador in Delhi.Four years later she went to Oxford University in the UK, where she studied philosophy, politics and economics. There she met her future husband, academic Michael Aris.After stints of living and working in Japan and Bhutan, she settled in the UK to raise their two children, Alexander and Kim, but Myanmar was never far from her thoughts.When she arrived back in Yangon in 1988 -...