Blinken criticizes Myanmar’s Suu Kyi’s new three-year term.

On Friday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken condemned a new three-year sentence imposed on Myanmar’s ousted elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi. It urged the country’s junta to exert more pressure.

“We strongly condemn the Burma military regime’s unjust sentence of three more years in prison, including hard labor, for Aung San Suu Kyi,” Blinken said, using Myanmar’s former name.

“We must collaborate to hold the regime accountable for the regime’s escalating violence and repression of democratically elected leaders in Burma.”

The latest sentence, handed down behind closed doors, brings the Nobel laureate and democracy figurehead’s total prison time to two decades.

The new sentence was for alleged electoral fraud in 2020 elections that her party easily won.

The military deposed and imprisoned her in February of the following year and has since piled on a slew of charges, including corruption, that her supporters claim are fabricated.

Since the coup, the US and other Western countries have imposed sanctions on Myanmar’s junta, but to little avail.

The US promised more action after the junta executed four democracy activists in July but has resisted imposing sanctions on its oil and gas industry due to opposition from Thailand, which imports energy from its neighbor.