Suu Kyi's son says she sounds strong but is held in near-total isolation

Myanmar's former democratic leader Aung San Suu Kyi appears to be in good physical and mental health but is living in near-complete isolation, according to her son, who has just had his first call with her in more than five years. She is 81.

"She still sounds certainly all there mentally, and physically she sounds strong," Kim Aris said. He added that he does not believe she has anyone around her other than military or police personnel, so she has essentially been held in solitary confinement, as far as he can gather.

The Nobel Peace Prize laureate was deposed in the 2021 military coup and has since been moved to an unspecified location in the capital. Aris said he is still not sure where she is, but thinks it is a fenced-off residence in Naypyidaw with a patch of scrubby land around it.

Aris, who has spent most of his life in the UK and whose late father was a British historian, was permitted to speak to her on Thursday at the Myanmar embassy in London. He welcomed the chance to talk but said the invitation formed part of a "public relations" campaign by the country's military leaders.

Former junta chief Min Aung Hlaing has been trying to rebuild diplomatic ties abroad. In April he swapped his military fatigues for civilian clothes after elections that were widely condemned as a sham.

Activists have long demanded "proof of life" for Aung San Suu Kyi and for scores of other political prisoners. She was photographed during a Red Cross visit in August. Last week, a government spokesperson released images of her smiling in a wood-panelled room as officials handed over two gardening books that Britain's King Charles had given her as gifts. A paper calendar on the wall behind her showed the date. Aris described such photo opportunities as familiar stunts the regime has used before to suggest his mother is being treated fairly.

"She remains completely shut off from the rest of the world," he said, adding that she is not allowed newspapers, radio or television. "She's been locked up for five years on trumped-up, politically motivated charges and she should be free." The daughter of assassinated independence hero Gen Aung San has spent much of her life since the late 1980s in and out of house arrest for leading pro-democracy movements.

Myanmar, long ruled by generals and hit by western sanctions, saw a brief democratic opening after she was allowed to contest a 2015 election that her party won overwhelmingly. She became "state counsellor" under a civilian-military power-sharing arrangement. Her international standing later suffered after the mass killings and expulsions of Rohingya Muslims in 2016 and 2017. At the International Court of Justice in The Hague, she acknowledged that military units might have used "disproportionate force" but defended the government against accusations of genocide.

Aris said his mother was never "silent" on the Rohingya crisis and that what she said about it "could fill volumes". Under her leadership, he noted, Myanmar began a domestic inquiry and appointed former UN chief Kofi Annan to lead a commission. He also said she was "always walking on a tightrope" as state counsellor, knowing the military could remove her fragile power at any time, and that the army worked to undermine her position.

The 2021 takeover triggered a civil war that conflict monitors say has killed more than 100,000 people. Aris said global public support for his mother has "dwindled incredibly" since the Rohingya crisis, and that the whole country now suffers from a lack of international attention. Using the country's former name, he said: "The fact that people ignore what's happening in Burma shouldn't be down to what was being done to the Rohingya."