Former Thai police chief convicted of torture and murder found dead

A former Thai police officer, nicknamed “Joe Ferrari” for his extravagant collection of cars, was found dead in his cell three years after he was sentenced to life for torturing and killing a drug suspect.

Thitisan Utthanaphon was found dead in his cell at Bangkok’s Klong Prem Central Prison on Friday night, prison authorities said.

A Department of Corrections statement confirmed that prison officials were notified of an inmate’s death at 8.50pm on Friday. The deceased was later identified as Thitisan, who had served three years and six months in prison.

“Prison officials have been informed that one inmate named Thitisan Utthanaphon has been found dead,” the statement said.

CCTV footage showed nobody had entered the cell, but an autopsy is being conducted to determine the cause of death, the statement said.

A Thai court in 2022 had jailed six police officers, apart from Thitisan, for life for torturing and killing a drug suspect during interrogation. A Bangkok court initially sentenced the six officers to death for coercion, malfeasance, abuse of authority and death by torture, but commuted that to life imprisonment for their cooperation and attempts to revive the suspect, court documents showed.

The then 40-year-old Thitisan, a police chief in Nakhon Sawan province, was arrested with six other officers in August, when an interrogation video went viral showing the victim with plastic bags over his head, suffocating while pinned down on the floor. One of the officers was jailed for eight years for malfeasance, commuted to just over five years.

The video captured huge attention in Thailand and sparked a debate about abuse and corruption by police and the extent to which powerful law enforcement figures are untouchable.

The trial was seen as a test of Thailand’s judicial system and its willingness to hold senior police accountable.

All of the officers planned to appeal their sentences, Chokchai Angkaew, a lawyer for Thitisan, had told Reuters in 2022.

Thitisan, a career policeman, was also being investigated about the extent and sources of his wealth after the discovery of a dozen luxury vehicles, including a Lamborghini and Ferrari, during a raid on his plush Bangkok home.

Pornpen Khongkachonkiet, a Thai human rights activist who monitors and documents torture cases, said at that time the verdict was an important precedent for legal cases concerning abuse by state officials.

On Friday afternoon, his wife visited him in prison, with officers reporting no unusual behaviour at the time, the Malay Mail reported.

His family had reportedly raised concerns over previous allegations of mistreatment in prison. On 26 February, his mother formally lodged a complaint with the Department of Corrections, calling for an investigation into her son’s treatment in prison, the report said.

His lawyer, Weerasak Nakhin, had claimed that Thitisan instructed him to file a complaint with the Prachachuen police regarding an alleged assault in prison, the outlet reported.

Prominent Hindu temple in California vandalised with anti-Modi graffiti

A prominent Hindu temple in California was vandalised on Saturday, sparking condemnation from the India government, which called it a “despicable” act, urging US authorities to take action against those responsible.

The attack on the BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Mandir in Chino Hills, a city in Southern California, came days before a planned “Khalistani referendum” in Los Angeles in March – a non-binding vote for an independent Sikh homeland in India’s northern Punjab region.

According to several media reports, the temple was defaced with “anti-Hindu” and “anti-Modi” graffiti.

Randhir Jaiswal, spokesperson for India’s Ministry of External Affairs, said New Delhi was deeply concerned about the incident and called for better security at places of worship.

“We condemn such despicable acts in the strongest terms,” he said. “We call upon the local law enforcement authorities to take stringent action against those responsible for these acts, and also ensure adequate security [for] places of worship.”

BAPS, the organisation that manages the temple, said it would not allow hate to divide communities.

“In the face of another Mandir desecration, this time in Chino Hills, CA, the Hindu community stands steadfast against hate,” BAPS Public Affairs wrote on X.

“Together with the community in Chino Hills and Southern California, we will never let hate take root. Our common humanity and faith will ensure that peace and compassion prevail.”

The latest attack has drawn condemnation from Hindu groups in the US, amid rising concerns over similar incidents in recent months.

The Coalition of Hindus of North America (CoHNA), a US-based advocacy group, also condemned the attack, linking it to a string of recent temple vandalism cases and calling for an investigation.

“Another Hindu temple vandalised – this time the iconic BAPS temple in Chino Hills, CA,” the group posted on X. “Not surprising this happens as the day for a so-called Khalistan referendum in LA draws close.”

The Khalistani movement wants an independent Sikh state carved out of India, and dates back to India and Pakistan’s independence in 1947. The idea was pushed forward in negotiations preceding the partition of the Punjab region between the two new countries.

The Sikh religion was founded in Punjab in the late 15th century and currently has about 25 million followers worldwide. Sikhs form a majority of Punjab’s population but are a minority in India, comprising 2 per cent of its population of 1.4 billion. Sikh separatists demand that their homeland Khalistan, meaning “the land of the pure”, be created out of Punjab.

The demand has resurfaced many times, most prominently during a violent insurgency in the 1970s and 1980s which paralysed Punjab for over a decade.

Several Hindu temples in North America have been vandalised with graffiti and slogans related to the Khalistan movement.

In September last year, a sign board and driveway of the Bochasanwasi Shri Akshar Purushottam Swaminarayan Sanstha (BAPS) temple in Melville, Suffolk County, was defaced with spray paint.

Vandals wrote “anti-Hindu” messages that also targeted Indian prime minister Narendra Modi, the police said.

The BAPS Swaminarayan temple in Toronto’s Etobicoke in 2022 was defaced with Khalistan graffiti. Officials at the BAPS temple in Toronto at that time confirmed the graffiti and said “anti-social elements” were behind it as they issued an appeal for peace.

South Korea’s impeached president Yoon Suk Yeol leaves prison

South Korea’s impeached president Yoon Suk Yeol left a detention centre in Seoul on Saturday after prosecutors decided not to appeal a court decision to cancel his arrest warrant.

Mr Yoon remains suspended from his duties and under insurrection charges over his short-lived martial law imposition on 3 December. The criminal case is separate from his impeachment trial, in which the Constitutional Court is expected to decide in coming days whether to reinstate him or remove him from office.

TV footage on Saturday showed Mr Yoon coming out of prison. Mr Yoon waved his hand and deeply bowed to his supporters after he came out of a detention centre in Seoul.

The Seoul Central District Court cancelled Mr Yoon’s arrest warrant on Friday, citing the timing of his indictment and “questions about the legality” of the investigation process.

Mr Yoon, the first South Korean president to be arrested while in office, has been in custody since 15 January.

On Saturday, some 38,000 of his supporters rallied in Seoul, while 1,500 people demonstrated against him, Yonhap news agency reported, citing unofficial police estimates.

The president was arrested and indicted in January for rebellion, in connection with his martial law decree. The move sparked chaos in Seoul before it was voted down by lawmakers and rescinded in a matter of hours.

Mr Yoon has claimed he was acting to root out “anti-state” elements and that he never intended to fully impose emergency military rule.

Mr Yoon’s lawyers had argued the warrant issued on 19 January was invalid because the request filed by prosecutors was procedurally flawed.

“South Korea’s rule of law is still alive,” Mr Yoon’s legal counsel said, shortly after Seoul Central District Court made the ruling on Friday.

The president’s office welcomed the court’s decision, saying it hopes Mr Yoon “will return to work soon”.

The court said it accepted the president’s request to be released from jail because the legal period of his formal arrest expired before he was indicted. The bench noted that there were “questions about the legality” of the investigation process that involved two separate agencies.

“To ensure procedural clarity and eliminate any doubts regarding the legality of the investigative process, it would be appropriate to issue a decision to cancel the detention,” the court said.

The 64-year-old president evaded arrests for weeks by remaining in his residential compound, which was protected by loyal members of the Presidential Security Service.

The country’s first martial law decree in nearly 40 years ended just after six hours when the National Assembly voted to withdraw it. Members of the assembly jumped over fences and broke through lines of armed soldiers who were preventing lawmakers from entering the building.

Mr Yoon is also facing an impeachment trial at the Constitutional Court to determine whether to remove him from office permanently or reinstate his presidential powers. If the court upholds Mr Yoon’s impeachment, he will be thrown out of office and a national election will be held to choose his successor within two months.

During his impeachment trial, the president apologised to the people of the country for not being able to serve them and causing “confusion and inconvenience” with his martial law bid.

Mr Yoon said if he was allowed to serve, he would make constitutional amendments to change the current presidential system and push for political reforms.

“If a constitutional amendment and political reform are pursued correctly, I believe the separated and divided people will unite in the process,” he added. He also suggested stepping down before his single five-year term ends in 2027 to promote “political reform”.

South Korea is currently led by finance minister Choi Sang Mok, who became the country’s second acting president in two weeks after Mr Yoon’s impeachment.

The first acting president, Han Duck-soo, was impeached amid disagreements with the opposition on appointing justices to the Constitutional Court.

Taliban say women’s rights are protected despite ongoing restrictions

The Taliban issued a message on International Women’s Day, saying Afghan women live in security with their rights protected, even as the UN condemned ongoing employment and education bans.

Since the Taliban took control of Afghanistan in 2021, they have banned education for women and girls beyond sixth grade, most employment, and barred them from many public spaces. Last August, the Vice and Virtue Ministry published laws that ban women’s voices and bare faces outside the home.

The Taliban’s chief spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid, released a statement on his official X account, without specifically mentioning International Women’s Day, which is celebrated on 8 March.

He said the dignity, honour, and legal rights of women were a priority for the Islamic emirate, the term used by the Taliban to describe their government.

Afghan women lived in security, both physically and psychologically, he added.

“In accordance with Islamic law and the culture and traditions of Afghan society, the fundamental rights of Afghan women have been secured. However, it should not be forgotten that the rights of Afghan women are being discussed within an Islamic and Afghan society, which has clear differences from Western societies and their culture,” he said.

Also on Saturday, the UN renewed its call for the Taliban to lift the bans.

“The erasure of women and girls from public life cannot be ignored,” said Roza Otunbayeva, the head of the UN mission in Afghanistan. “We remain committed to investing in their resilience and leadership, as they are key to Afghanistan’s future.”

Alison Davidian, special representative for UN Women Afghanistan, said the world could not accept a future for Afghan women that would never be tolerated elsewhere.

“Our response to their erasure is a test of our commitment to women and girls everywhere,” said Ms Davidian. “We must stand with Afghan women as if our own lives depend on it – because they do.”

The Taliban remain isolated from the West – and without international recognition as the country’s official government – because of their restrictions on women and girls.

On Friday in Paris, Unesco hosted a high-level conference on women and girls in Afghanistan. Participants included Hamida Aman, the founder of the women-only station Radio Begum, Fawzia Koofi, a parliamentarian from the former Western-backed government, and rights experts including Richard Bennett, who is barred from entering Afghanistan.

In an apparent dig at the event, the spokesperson for the Vice and Virtue Ministry, Saif ul-Islam Khyber, said recent international conferences held under the name of women’s rights exposed the hypocrisy of certain organisations and European Union foundations.

The trailblazing female Cambodian tuk tuk group driving change

It’s about 7pm, and night-time has already fallen in Siem Reap, Cambodia, and Ms Kim is sitting in the back bench seat of her own tuk tuk, talking to me via video call on her phone, after a long day of working.

In 2013, she became one of Cambodia’s first few female tuk tuk drivers, among the country’s tens of thousands of male tuk tuk drivers. Motorbikes pull these motorised two-wheeled carriages with two bench seats – also known as auto rickshaws or “remorque” in Khmer – and fill the country’s streets, an easy and cheap way to traverse its busy traffic.

However, you’ll barely see any women driving them, that is, unless you go to Siem Reap. Known as the gateway to Angkor Wat – Cambodia’s Unesco-status complex of Hindu-Buddhist temples on the well-trodden backpacker path – there are plenty of tourists to drive around. That’s why Ms Kim started Tuk Tuk Lady here, Cambodia’s first non-profit organisation for female tuk tuk drivers.

It’s now a 50-strong group of women driving tuk tuks around the area’s historical sites and taking people to and from restaurants and hotels. The drivers are also easily recognisable thanks to their uniforms of bright blue T-shirts.

Read more: Exploring Vietnam’s untouched landscapes by motorbike

Ms Kim says the community was created to “empower women and give them more confidence and independence, and to break stereotypes” in a very male-dominated society and industry. It also gives them access to the country’s growing tourism industry. Among them, there are single mothers, like herself, as well as widows, people with disabilities and young people who don’t have work. It gives people who are often disadvantaged the chance to work and contribute.

Tuk Tuk Lady started in 2021, but the idea for it has been brewing since 2013 when Ms Kim got her licence, and getting to where she is now certainly hasn’t come without its obstacles. Previously, she had been a street vendor, selling fish and vegetables on roadside markets. But it became a necessity to find other work, as her youngest son has problems with his sight and hearing, and both she and her ex-husband suffered bouts of illness followed by divorce. Worse yet, to pay for treatment, she was forced to sell her tuk tuk. To buy another, which cost $2,200 (£1,700), she had to borrow the money.

In 2013, there weren’t any women driving tuk tuks in Phnom Penh. When Ms Kim finally got her licence and went to pick it up, even the people issuing it were surprised that she was a woman and the owner of a tuk tuk. There also weren’t many tourists and so she had to rely on the business of locals, which also came with its problems. “Once I had my licence and started driving on the road, I quickly realised that no one knew I was a tuk tuk driver! There were no passengers waiting for me because the idea of a female tuk tuk driver was still new.”

She also says she was “looked down on, especially by local people” who didn’t think she could do the job. She would also often “be confused for the customer of the tuk tuk, rather than the driver”. Even after showing potential customers her licence, they still didn’t believe her, and so she struggled for work.

It was when she moved from the capital to Siem Reap in 2015 that the tables turned. “I met a lot of tourists who encouraged me, gave me advice, taught me English and made me feel confident and proud of myself,” she says.

Read more: Why you should experience Tokyo by bike

This newfound confidence pushed her to create Tuk Tuk Lady, and when other women saw what she was doing, many wanted to join the community she’d created. For Ms Kim, encouraging other women to believe that whatever men can do, women can do too, is the best part of her community.

Though she says despite having plenty of support from international tourists, disappointedly, “still, local people don’t really support us, we want them to use our service too”. They’re also in competition with Indian rickshaws – they’re much smaller and usually have green and yellow or black and yellow cabs, but aren’t as good for sightseeing as they’re more enclosed. “Local people prefer to use the rickshaw, as they’re cheaper, it’s one of the challenges for us,” she says. They’re also mostly booked on ride-hailing apps, which limit the price on the distance, making them cheaper.

Helping with her success, Ms Kim says social media has been key: “I’m recommended on TripAdvisor, so I get pre-bookings through this and I also get tourists who want to book me immediately too via WhatsApp.” She’s also on other social media platforms, such as Facebook, Instagram and TikTok, where she promotes her business and is also recommended by the G Adventures tour operator, which connects her drivers to travellers. Her main customers are usually families, as they’ve heard about Ms Kim’s family and want to support her and “they know I will look after them properly”.

When I ask how her day has been, she says she’s happy she’s been able to help people today. When she’s not driving tourists, she also uses her tuk tuk to deliver books to young children, as well as food to older people, and she is almost brought to tears when she tells me how important this is to her. Her commitment to supporting and improving the lives of her community runs deep.

Ms Kim’s tuk tuk community provides far more than simply a service to tourists. Not only is it a way for travellers to connect to local people in Siem Reap and to financially support them, but it’s also giving women independence and confidence to be part of something much bigger – they’re on the road to equality.

Ms Kim can be pre-booked through her website tuktuklady.com, or is often found parked in front of the Shinta Mani Shack Boutique Resort hotel in Siem Reap

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Why China’s president hasn’t called Trump about US tariff trade war

When President Donald Trump slapped tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China this week, two leaders got on the phone to seek solutions.

But China’s president appears unlikely to make a similar call soon.

“As Washington escalates the tariff, Beijing doesn’t see other options but to retaliate,” said Sun Yun, director of the China program at the Stimson Center, a Washington-based think tank. “It doesn’t mean Beijing doesn’t want to negotiate, but it cannot be seen as begging for talks or mercy.”

Beijing, which unlike America’s close partners and neighbors has been locked in a trade and tech war with the U.S. for years, is taking a different approach to Trump in his second term making it clear that any negotiations should be conducted on equal footing.

China’s leaders say they are open to talks, but they also made preparations for the higher U.S. tariffs, which have risen 20 percent since Trump took office seven weeks ago.

Intent on not being caught off guard as they were during Trump’s first term, the Chinese were ready with retaliatory measures — imposing their own taxes this past week on key U.S. farm imports and more.

As the world’s second-largest economy, China aspires to be a great power on both the regional and global stage, commanding respect from all countries, especially the United States, as proof that the Communist Party has made China prosperous and strong.

After the U.S. this past week imposed another 10 percent tariff, on top of the 10 percent imposed on February 4, the Chinese foreign ministry uttered its sharpest retort yet: “If war is what the U.S. wants, be it a tariff war, a trade war or any other type of war, we’re ready to fight till the end.”

The harsh rhetoric echoed similar comments in 2018, when Trump launched his first trade war with China and it scrambled to line up tit-for-tat actions. Beijing’s leaders have since developed a toolkit of tariffs, import curbs, export controls, sanctions, regulatory reviews and measures to limit companies from doing business in China.

All are designed to inflict pain on the U.S. economy and businesses in response to the American measures.

That allowed the Chinese government to react swiftly to Trump’s recent across-the-board doubling of new tariffs on Chinese goods by rolling out a basket of retaliatory measures, including taxing many American farm goods at up to 15 percent, suspending U.S. lumber imports and blacklisting 15 U.S. companies.

Beijing showed restraint in its response to leave room for negotiation, analysts say.

Xi Jinping’s leadership of the ruling Communist Party spans both of Trump’s terms, giving Beijing more continuity in its planning. He is the one who decided it’s not yet time to speak with Trump, said Daniel Russel, vice president for international security and diplomacy at the Asia Society Policy Institute.

“That’s not a scheduling issue, it’s leverage for China,” said Russel, who previously served as the assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific Affairs. “Xi won’t walk into a call if there’s a chance he’ll be harassed or humiliated and for both political and strategic reasons, Xi won’t play the role of a supplicant.”

“Instead, China is hitting back promptly — but judiciously — to each set of tariffs,” Russel said.

At his annual press conference on Friday, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said that “no country should fantasize that it can suppress, contain China while developing good relations with China.”

“Such two-faced acts not only are bad for the stability of bilateral relations but also will not build mutual trust,” Wang said. He added that China welcomes cooperation with the U.S., but noted that “if you keep pressuring, China will firmly retaliate.”

Scott Kennedy, a trustee chair in Chinese business and economics at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, said the Chinese this time are “not psychologically shocked” by Trump’s “shock-and-awe” tactics.

“They’ve seen this before,” Kennedy said. “These are the kind of things that they’ve anticipated.”

China’s economy has slowed but is still growing at nearly a 5 percent annual pace, and under Xi, the party is investing heavily in advanced technology, education and other areas. It has stronger trade ties with many other countries than during Trump’s first term and has diversified where it gets key products, for example, buying most of its soybeans from Brazil and Argentina instead of the U.S.

In turn, the percentage of Chinese goods sold to the U.S. has fallen.

“They are better prepared to absorb the effect of the shocks, compared to several years ago,” Kennedy said.

Meanwhile, more than 80 percent of Mexico’s exports go to the U.S., and Canada sends 75 percent of its exports here.

China has learned from its previous dealings with Trump, Russel said. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum are facing a reversal of Trump’s previous trade policies, with tariffs imposed and then postponed twice on at least some goods.

“Beijing has seen enough to know that appeasing Trump doesn’t work,” Russel said. In the first go-around, Trudeau and Sheinbaum “bought a little time, but the pressure only came roaring back stronger.”

Trudeau flew to Mar-a-Lago to meet Trump in December after the president-elect threatened tariffs. But in announcing retaliatory tariffs on Tuesday, Trudeau sternly warned: “This is a time to hit back hard and to demonstrate that a fight with Canada will have no winners.”

Sheinbaum also has said that “no one wins with this decision.”

Myanmar junta chief announces election in next 10 months

Myanmar is set to hold its first election since the military seized power in a coup in February 2021, plunging the country into a brutal civil war.

Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, who led the coup against Aung San Suu Kyi’s elected government, announced that elections would take place in December 2025 or January 2026 at the latest, according to the state-run Global New Light of Myanmar newspaper.

Speaking in Belarus, one of Myanmar’s few remaining allies, he said 53 political parties had already submitted their lists to participate.

However, no exact date was given, and the junta has repeatedly pushed back election plans while facing growing battlefield losses.

The announcement comes as Myanmar’s military struggles to maintain control, with armed resistance from pro-democracy fighters and ethnic militias escalating across the country.

With the junta losing ground to resistance forces, opposition leaders jailed, and large parts of the country outside military control, the planned vote is already being dismissed as a farce.

Four years after overthrowing Ms Suu Kyi’s government, the military is on the defensive. It is believed to control less than half of Myanmar’s territory, with opposition forces seizing key towns and military bases. Holding a nationwide election in this environment seems nearly impossible.

The junta has already signalled that voting will only take place in areas it controls. In October, the military attempted a partial census to compile voter lists, but it only managed to collect data in 145 of 330 townships. The junta admitted in a report, that many areas controlled by ethnic militias and pro-democracy forces were inaccessible.

The plan for a general election is widely seen as an attempt to legitimise the military’s grip on power. Most of Myanmar’s opposition leaders, including Ms Suu Kyi, 79, remain in prison after what rights groups call politically motivated trials. The junta has also cracked down on independent media, making a fair election even more unlikely.

The National Unity Government (NUG), a shadow administration formed by ousted lawmakers and activists, has rejected the military’s election plans and vowed to block the vote through non-violent means.

How Myanmar’s Rohingya refugees feel about Aung San Suu Kyi

Sitting in a dimly-lit bamboo shelter in the world’s largest refugee camp, Rohingya Muslims like Azizur Rehman could be forgiven for hating Aung San Suu Kyi.

Five years ago, the then-leader of Myanmar appeared at the International Court of Justice to deny the Rohingya were victims of genocide by her country’s military, much to the shock of the rest of the world.

Yet Rehman, 34, speaks enthusiastically from Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh about the now jailed Myanmar leader and her father General Aung San, Myanmar’s independence hero, who in 1946 declared that Myanmar’s citizens “will live together and die together” and assured full rights and privileges for the Rohingya. One year later, he was assassinated.

“I don’t think she (Suu Kyi) is the real enemy of the Rohingya,” he tells The Independent. “She was just a rag doll who never had absolute power.”

Instead he blames the army itself and the Mogh Baghi – a common term used by refugees for the Arakan Army, the most powerful Buddhist rebel group in Myanmar accused of forcefully displacing tens of thousands of Rohingya.

“I don’t know if I, or the tens of thousands of people like me, will ever return to Burma. But I believe Aung San Suu Kyi’s release from detention could awaken her conscience and give her a chance to redeem herself for not speaking up for the Rohingya when she was in power.”

Rehman, who fled Rakhine State during the 2017 mass exodus, now works as a community leader in the camp, helping those who continue to flee war and destruction since General Min Aung Hlaing led a military coup that overthrew Suu Kyi’s democratically elected government in February 2021.

As Myanmar plunges deeper into civil war under military rule, Rohingya refugees like Rehman are reassessing their views on the jailed leader.

Desperate and frustrated with the ever-waning attention on one of the world’s most persecuted communities, many Rohingya in exile cling to the belief that the release of Suu Kyi will provide them some hope for repatriation to Myanmar.

Rehman’s perspective appears to be representative of many of the Rohingya who have fled across the border to Cox’s Bazar.

Now in her fourth year of solitary confinement in Myanmar, Suu Kyi, 79, was long celebrated as a global democratic icon for standing up to the Myanmar generals, but later fell from grace due to her silence and perceived complicity in the brutal military crackdown of 2017 – an operation that led to mass killings and displacement of over 700,000 Rohingya.

As the Myanmar military faced accusations of “widespread and systematic clearance operations,” including mass murder, rape, and destruction of Rohingya villages, Suu Kyi stood at The Hague in 2019 and dismissed the claims. She argued that the allegations against the military presented an “incomplete and misleading factual picture” and blamed the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) for triggering what she described as an “internal conflict”.

While Suu Kyi conceded that disproportionate military force may have been used and civilians killed, she said the acts did not constitute genocide. At Bangladesh’s refugee camp, some refugees at the time shouted “liar, liar, shame!” as they watched Suu Kyi on television.

Five years later, in November last year, the International Criminal Court’s prosecutor Karim Ahmad Khan requested an arrest warrant against General Hlaing “for the crimes against humanity of deportation and persecution of the Rohingya, committed in Myanmar, and in part in Bangladesh”. This request is currently under review by ICC judges, who will determine whether to issue the warrant.

Umma Hanee, 75, remembers watching the ICJ hearing where Suu Kyi defended the army against accusations of genocide.

“It was due to the power of the general that she was unable to speak up for the Rohingyas at that time and General Min Aung Hlaing was actually the person in power, who used to direct violence against people in Rakhine state,” Hanee says.

“Rohingyas are the citizens of Myanmar and everyone, including Suu Kyi should raise their voice for us.”

Mohammad Shakir, 35, blames General Hlaing for pushing the Mogh Baghi into the Rakhine state, calling him the “main culprit” of the crisis in Myanmar.

“General Min Aung Hlaing has controlled the power in Myanmar,” he asserts.

Shakir believes that if “Rohingyas now stand with her (Suu Kyi) and demand her release, she might testify that Rohingya did not commit violence, but the junta did”.

The refugees in Bangladesh say they follow the happenings in Myanmar and updates on Suu Kyi through TV and online news on their phones despite bad reception in parts of the camps – once a forested area inhabited by wild animals, now home to nearly a million displaced people.

It is not the first time Suu Kyu has been under house arrest. Arrested three times before, she has spent more than 18 years of her life with little company and no connection with the outside world.

Once likened to Mahatma Gandhi and Nelson Mandela, she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her non-violent struggle for democracy and human rights in Myanmar in 1991. At the time, she was under house arrest imposed by the military junta for her role in leading the pro-democracy movement.

Her younger son Kim Aris, who lives in London, has raised concerns over his mother’s health in interviews with The Independent and made a direct appeal to the military-run government in Naypyidaw to release her on the fourth anniversary of the 2021 coup.

The Independent TV’s documentary Cancelled: The Rise and Fall of Aung San Suu Kyi shines a light on her continued imprisonment.

In Cox’s Bazaar, Sabikun Nahar, who has lived in a cramped 12ft by 12ft shelter for two years, tells how she once owned a large piece of land in Myanmar.

She alleges that the land is now occupied by the military and used for conducting activities against their people.

Nahar believes that Suu Kyi’s downfall is intrinsically linked to the 2017 crisis.

“If the 2017 influx had not happened, she might not have been jailed. Even when she was in power, she was making efforts to repatriate us. But this angered Min Aung Hlaing, and he jailed her. That’s why we are still unable to return to Myanmar,” she says.

Many Rohingya had high hopes when Suu Kyi became Myanmar’s first civilian leader after decades of military rule—largely because of her father’s legacy. General Aung San had openly referred to the Rohingya as “our own people”, a recognition later erased by successive military regimes.

Rehman and others remember the “red identity cards” issued under Aung San’s leadership—proof of their Burmese citizenship—only to be replaced later with white cards, marking them as Bengalis and Muslims rather than Myanmar nationals.

“That was the only identity proof my family held for a short period of time. Since then, we are fighting for our identity and our homeland, facing systematic oppression at the hands of the junta,” Rehman says.

Abdul Karim, a 60-year-old refugee whose mother had a similar identity card, lamented that Suu Kyi did not fulfil her commitment to ensure peace in Rakhine state and remembered her father “who was more sympathetic to them.

“We voted for her in the election as she was our only hope. But she failed us and the world,” he says.

The influx of Rohingyas into the already overcrowded camps in neighbouring Bangladesh has never stopped since 2017. It has been exacerbated by the 2021 coup which has unleashed a civil war in parts of the country, especially in the Rakhine state. It is one of the poorest among the country’s seven states and has a vast majority of the population of Rohingya Muslims.

Human rights groups have raised concerns over the living conditions in the camps where the majority of the population solely relied on the UN’s funding for food and healthcare.

The United Nations’ food agency earlier this week said it was planning to slash food rations for Rohingya refugees by more than half from next month, a move that activists say would cause widespread malnutrition among the already vulnerable community.

The Independent spoke to those who have escaped violence, rapes and forced conscription in their country. The fighting in Myanmar has intensified between rebel groups and the military since the latter claimed power and overthrew the democratically elected government.

In the last year, the military has lost huge swaths of territory to the rebel groups, including in nearly all of Rakhine State, according to reports. It has also lost territory in the west and northern Shan State in the east of Myanmar and large parts of Kachin State in the north.

Hanee, a septuagenarian, says there are textbooks in Myanmar on General Aung San while Suu Kyi had her contribution written and erased with the multiple military coups the country has seen.

She says the only way to bring peace in Myanmar is after Suu Kyi is released and the Arakan Army is held accountable and taken over.

Noor Hashim, a refugee himself who works with trafficking victims at the camps, says Suu Kyi is one of them.

“Suu Kyi has been the victim of the military like us,” he explains, demanding that she should be released and allowed to spend the rest of the days with her family.