May 27, 2009

64 Words for Aung San Suu Kyi

Today marks a very sad anniversary for Burma’s pro-democracy leader and Nobel Peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi: 19 years since the vote in which she led her party to a victory the military refused to recognize. Since then this woman, who has been detained for over 13 years by the Burmese regime for campaigning for human rights and democracy, symbolizes the struggle of Burma’s people to be free.

As it was not enough, starting from May 18 she is facing trial in Burma after being arrested on May 14 for breaking the terms of her house arrest, which forbids visitors. In fact, an American man, John Yettaw, swam across Inya Lake and refused to leave her house. Aung San Suu Kyi is now being held in Insein Prison, a prison notorious for its terrible conditions and horrific treatment of prisoners, who are routinely subjected to torture and often denied medical treatment (there are serious concerns for Aung San Suu Kyi’s health in these conditions, particularly as she has recently been seriously ill).

But she has committed no crime, she is the victim of crime, and the United Nations has ruled that Aung San Suu Kyi’s detention is illegal under international law, and also under Burmese law. Furthermore, the United Nations Security Council has told the dictatorship that they must release Aung San Suu Kyi. But it was no use.

What can we do for her? There is a site, 64 for Suu, where anyone from around the world can leave a message of support for Aung San Suu Kyi. The idea is that of gathering hundreds of thousand of messages by her 64th Birthday, June 19, 2009. You can leave / view video, text, twitter and image messages. What about trying it out?

posted by a
Etichette:

2 comments:

  1. Mirino2:04 PM, May 28, 2009

    That's a nice idea.

    Mr Yettaw, on the other hand was less inspired. Considering it was the worse timing possible that he chose to swim across to her house, and the fact that it was obviously no secret, one is even tempted to believe the Burmese junta set him up to do it. Who needs admirers like Mr. Yettaw?

    BBC article on her trial:

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8067127.stm

    http://oknotizie.virgilio.it/info/40841220226bb9e4/aung_san_suu_kyi_nega_le_accuse_bbc_.html

    ReplyDelete
  2. S.R. Piccoli12:24 AM, May 29, 2009

    Thank you, Mirino.
    1972(Enzo Reale) has very interesting posts on the trial (in Italian, but he links to resources in English).

    ReplyDelete

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)