Aung San Suu Kyi, was born on June 19, 1945, in Rangoon, Burma.  She is a non-violent pro-democracy activist and General Secretary of Burma's National League for Democracy (NLD).  A devout Buddhist, Suu Kyi won the Rafto Prize and the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought in 1990 and 1991 respectively.  She was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991 for her non-violent struggle to restore democracy to Burma.  Much has been written about Aung San Suu Kyi and her life. 

 

For further background, see Aung San Suu Kyi.  She has been detained by the military junta in Burma for more than 13 of the past 19 years under house arrest.  On May 30, 2003, after a year-long period of release, her caravan was attacked in the northern village of Depayin by a government-sponsored mob.  Over 70 of her supporters were murdered.  A short time later, she was again placed under house arrest, where she has remained ever since. 

 

After much hope for her release -- and former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan calling on Senior Gen. Than Shwe to "do the right thing" -- her house arrest was again extended for a year by the Burmese authorities on May 27, 2006.  A short time later, Freedom Now was retained by a member of her family to help secure her release.

 

On June 16, 2006, Freedom Now filed a Petition to the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention calling for Suu Kyi's release and describing the military junta's violations of their own and international law in the case.  The Working Group has previously issued three opinions finding various periods of her house arrest to be in violation of international law.  As a new detention period began on May 27, a new Petition had to be filed to reaffirm those previous findings.

On May 15, 2007, former Norwegian Prime Minister Kjell Magne Bondevik released a letter from 59 former Presidents and Prime Ministers urging the Burmese junta to release Aung San Suu Kyi from house arrest.  Subsequent calls for her release came from ASEAN, the European Union, 13 Special Rapporteurs of the UN, and numerous other countries around the world.  Nevertheless, the Burmese junta again extended her house arrest by another year on May 25th.

A short time later, on May 31, 2007, Freedom Now released Opinion No. 2/2007 from the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention finding Aung San Suu Kyi's ongoing house arrest illegal and calling for her immediate release.  See also The Lady and the Junta, in the International Herald Tribune, June 2, 2007.

On May 27, 2008, the junta again renewed Suu Kyi's house arrest, in clear violation of its own law.  See How Long Will the Burmese Have to Wait? in the International Herald Tribune, Press Release, and Legal Memorandum. In the wake of Cyclone Nargis, Freedom Now also pressed for humanitarian access to Burma for the international community. See op-eds in the Boston Globe , Business Day (Johannesburg), and Far Eastern Economic Review.

On June 18, 2008, Freedom Now filed a new Petition to the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention on behalf of Aung San Suu Kyi.

At the end of 2008, and in collaboration with a number of organizations that included the Oslo Center for Peace and Human Rights, Freedom Now undertook a campaign to combine the voices of former world leaders in calling for the release of political prisoners. These efforts culminated in a letter released December 3, 2008, by 112 former Presidents and Prime Ministers urging UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon to travel to Burma and press for the release of 2,100 political prisoners including Aung San Suu Kyi.

On March 24, 2009, Freedom Now released Opinion No. 46/2008 from the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, which declared that Aung San Suu Kyi's house arrest was in clear violation of both Burmese and international law.

On April 3, 2009, a group of 17 Members of Congress sent a letter to US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton about the Burma Policy Review, including urging her to press for the release of Aung San Suu Kyi.  A short time later, the Senate Women's Caucus on Burma sent a letter to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urging him to put additional pressure on the Burmese junta.

The Burmese junta has put Aung San Suu Kyi on trial for allegedly violating the terms of her house arrest.  See The Burmese Junta Still Fears Suu Kyi, By Jared Genser and Meghan Barron, May 18, 2009.

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