Aung San Suu Kyi poses for a portrait in Yangon, Myanmar, in 2010. A month earlier, she had been released from house arrest.
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In pictures: Aung San Suu Kyi

Updated 11:38 AM ET, Mon December 6, 2021

Aung San Suu Kyi poses for a portrait in Yangon, Myanmar, in 2010. A month earlier, she had been released from house arrest.
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Myanmar's military seized power in a coup in February, detaining the country's civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi and other top government figures.

The coup came after months of increasing friction between the civilian government and the powerful military, known as the Tatmadaw, over alleged election irregularities.

Suu Kyi was hit with a dozen charges that add up to combined maximum sentences of more than 100 years. In December, she was sentenced to two years in jail on charges of incitement and breaking Covid-19 rules. She has rejected all the allegations against her, and her supporters say the charges against her are political.

Suu Kyi, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991, is widely considered a hero of democracy in Myanmar. After spending 15 years under house arrest as part of a decades-long fight against military rule, she led her party to a landslide victory in Myanmar's 2015 elections, establishing the country's first civilian government.

But her international reputation has been tarnished in recent years. Suu Kyi came under fire for failing to speak out against numerous atrocities allegedly carried out by the military against Rohingya Muslims. Hundreds of thousands of the persecuted ethnic minority were forced into neighboring Bangladesh during violent military operations in 2016 and 2017.

Suu Kyi, front center, is seen with her parents and her two elder brothers in 1947. Her father, Aung San, was the commander of the Burma Independence Army and helped negotiate the country's independence from Britain. He was assassinated on July 19, 1947. Suu Kyi's mother, Ma Khin Kyi, was a diplomat who was once an ambassador to India.
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Suu Kyi poses with Burmese comedian Par Par Lay, who was part of the pro-democracy act "The Moustache Brothers." Suu Kyi grew up in Myanmar and India but moved to England in the 1960s, where she studied at Oxford University. She returned to Myanmar in 1988 and co-founded the National League for Democracy, a political party dedicated to nonviolence and civil disobedience.
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Suu Kyi sprinkles water over the heads of her followers during a traditional new year ceremony in Yangon in 1989. Five days of celebrations were marked by anti-government protests closely watched by armed troops.
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Suu Kyi poses for a photo in June 1989.
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Suu Kyi addresses a crowd of supporters in Yangon in July 1989. About two weeks later, she was placed under house arrest and charged with trying to divide the military. She denied the charges.
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While under house arrest, Suu Kyi won the Nobel Peace Price in 1991. She was honored "for her non-violent struggle for democracy and human rights."
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