Kim Aris, the youngest son of Myanmar’s imprisoned former leader Aung San Suu Kyi, has spoken to his mother for the first time in five years, in a development that has provided rare information about her condition and renewed attention to her continued detention. The 20-minute telephone conversation was arranged after the British Foreign Office alerted Aris, who was invited to the Burmese embassy in Mayfair, London, where he was allowed to speak to her privately.
“It was wonderful finally to be able to speak with my mother,” Aris told The Independent. “Hearing her voice means more than words can express. She sounded strong and was delighted that we could finally speak.” He said they mainly discussed family matters and that the conversation enabled him to learn about her condition and where she was staying. He also reassured her that the family was continuing its efforts to secure her release.
Suu Kyi, 81, is being held under house arrest in Naypyitaw after spending years in detention under Myanmar’s military authorities. According to Aris, she is largely alone at the residence, where police are stationed around the house. She can go into the garden, which he described as “essentially scrubland”. He also learnt during their conversation that she was suffering from tendonitis affecting her right hand.
“It is a wonderful moment to hear her voice and to be able to talk to her and know that she is alive,” Aris said. But he cautioned against treating the conversation as evidence that the restrictions on his mother had been lifted or that she was closer to freedom. The call was the first contact between them in five years, and he said it could not compensate for the time she had spent detained or the rights she continued to be denied.
“My mother is 81. She remains unjustly detained, and a single conversation cannot restore the years taken from her or the rights she is still denied,” he said. Thanking those who had supported his efforts to make contact, he added: “Your voices helped me hear my mother again. Please do not let the world mistake that moment for her freedom. One conversation is not regular family access. Family access is not freedom.”
Aris also called for the release of all political prisoners in Myanmar, insisting that his mother’s detention should not be used to secure political or diplomatic concessions. “My mother must never be held hostage or used as a bargaining chip for diplomatic recognition, sanctions relief or political advantage,” he said. “Above all, my mother and all political prisoners must be released immediately and unconditionally. Freedom is not a favour to be granted or a concession to be negotiated.”
His intervention came as he addressed an event in London this week at a screening of The Independent’s documentary, Cancelled: The Rise and Fall of Aung San Suu Kyi, released in December 2024. The film examines the former leader’s political career and legacy, a subject that has remained controversial even as her detention has continued to draw international attention.
Asked why Suu Kyi remained imprisoned, Aris said he believed military chief-turned-president Min Aung Hlaing feared the political support she retained among the population. “I think he’s still afraid of her; ultimately, the power she is able to hold in Burma is still much greater than people realise and the people of Burma still support her,” he said. “When they freed her previously, I don’t think they realised quite how much support she had – now they do.”
Suu Kyi was arrested in February 2021 after Myanmar’s military seized power from her elected government in a coup. She was subsequently convicted of multiple offences, including corruption, incitement and election fraud, in proceedings that her supporters and human rights groups have criticised as politically motivated. She has spent more than 20 years of her life in detention under the military, and her continued confinement has restricted her ability to communicate with her family.
In April 2026, the regime reduced her sentence through a series of amnesties, bringing the remaining term to 18 years, and transferred her from prison to house arrest. The change in her place of detention has not resulted in regular contact with her family, according to Aris’s account of their first conversation in five years.
Attention also turned to Suu Kyi after Myanmar’s authorities released photographs showing her receiving two gardening books and a sealed letter from Britain’s King Charles. The images, published on social media by the junta, showed her wearing a traditional blouse and skirt, seated across a small table from two officials in a wood-panelled room.
The books were The Land Gardeners: Soil to Table, by British authors Bridget Elworthy and Henrietta Courtauld, which examines the relationship between healthy soil and food production, and Soil: The World at Our Feet, a catalogue from an exhibition at London’s Somerset House exploring the importance of soil to life on Earth. The photographs and the king’s letter provided a further indication of contact involving the detained former leader, but Aris’s central demand remained unchanged: the release of his mother and all other political prisoners without conditions.
