Democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi has called for political change in Myanmar and has spent 14 of the last 20 years being punished for it. The military junta that has run the country since a 1962 coup has cracked down on political dissent, jailing thousands of reformists and activists. Aung San Suu Kyi, the primary face of the movement for democracy, has been kept under house arrest, unofficially detained, and subjected to other restrictions since the National League for Democracy (NLD), which she co-founded, won a 1990 general election. The NLD was immediately denied power by the ruling State Peace and Development Council.
Aung San Suu Kyi is one of Amnesty International’s 10 priority cases who you can help free by participating in our Global Write-a-thon running from December 5-13. She has most recently been placed under 18 months’ house arrest in August, a move that the international community has censured as a government pretext to prohibit her from participating in state elections scheduled for 2010.
The U2 360 Degrees concert this past Tuesday September 29th, at FedEx Field in Washington DC, was truly spectacular. These guys really do know how to put on a show! The band performed all their acclaimed classics, and surprised the crowd with unbelievable stage props, lighting effects, stage expansions, and new medleys. U2 has tirelessly fought for human rights around the world and they did not fail to include this in their show.
I attended the event as a volunteer for Amnesty International spreading the word for Demand Dignity in the fight for justice against poverty, as well as signing up new members and explaining to people how they can take action. The bonus: going on stage with U2 and the other 85 volunteers in the name of Aung San Suu Kyi (prisoner of conscience in Myanmar) during the song “Walk On.” To call this moment amazing is an understatement. Walking on stage and helping to communicate a message of strength and hope to 84,000 people was simply powerful.
Thank you to all the Amnesty activists who sent postcards calling for the release of more than 2,000 people detained in Myanmar.
Big news.
According to our latest count, the Myanmar government has granted amnesty to at least 126 political prisoners, including high profile Amnesty cases Khaing Kaung San, Ko Aung Tun and Myo Yan Naung Thein. The repressive Myanmar regime tried to silence these peaceful voices by putting them behind bars.
We’ve been ratcheting up pressure on Myanmar for months, and it’s working. Just a few weeks ago, 20,000 Amnesty activists sent postcards calling for the release of more than 2,000 people detained in Myanmar simply for exercising their human rights. Amnesty members helped secure the release of Burmese dissident Ma Khin Khin Leh earlier this year.
These amazing developments give us hope for the release of Nobel Laureate and pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, convicted in a sham trial and wrongly sentenced to 18 months in prison.
Its official: Amnesty International USA is touring with U2. U2’s “360 Degrees” US tour kicked off this past Saturday, September 12th in Chicago, but Amnesty has been a part of the tour since the first date in Barcelona over the summer. Amnesty International’s focus will be the new campaign Demand Dignity that works to end the human rights abuses that are a cause and a consequence of poverty. Volunteers will be taking photos of fans holding placard signs that say “Justice Against Poverty”, as well as signing up new members and explaining to people how they can take action on important issues around the demand dignity campaign.
U2 has been involved in many campaigns with Amnesty International and has tirelessly fought for human rights around the world. On the “360 Degrees” European tour during a July concert in their hometown of Dublin, U2 and Amnesty International announced that Daw Aung San Suu Kyi (prisoners of conscience in Myanmar) had been recognized with Amnesty International’s Ambassador of Conscience Award for 2009. This award recognizes her exceptional leadership in the fight to protect and promote human rights.
Amnesty International is proud to have U2 as a companion on the Human Right’s stage. Look for us at the show!
A court in military-ruled Myanmar sentenced opposition leader and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi to three years in prison, a sentence which was immediately reduced to a year and half under house arrest. The verdict was handed down in the country’s infamous Insein prison, where she was held since her arrest last May. If this shameful verdict will lead to wider unrest remains to be seen. There were apparently at least 2,000 security personnel deployed around Insein prison.
20 years of oppression
Daw Aung San Suu Kyi was on trial for allegedly violating the terms and conditions of her house arrest. The leader of the Myanmar opposition party, the National League for Democracy, was arrested shortly before her house detention order was to expire on 27 May 2009
She has been detained for over 13 of the past 20 years, mostly under house arrest. Her first period in detention began in July 1989 as the Myanmar government intensified its crackdown on nationwide pro-democracy protests that began a year earlier.
Amnesty International announced on 27 July that Daw Aung San Suu Kyi has been awarded its most prestigious honor – the “Ambassador of Conscience” Award for 2009.
Over 2,100 political prisoners
Daw Aung San Suu Kyi is the most prominent of over 2,100 political prisoners in Myanmar. Many are held in poor conditions, and are at risk of torture and other ill-treatment. Conditions in Myanmar’s prisons are harming the health of many political prisoners. Access to medical treatment is severely limited. Many prisoners are denied adequate food and are therefore malnourished.
Judicial proceedings show no regard for due process, and many trials have been held in special closed courts. Since October 2008, when the government began sentencing en masse those who had peacefully taken part in major anti-government protests in August and September 2007, more than 350 political activists have been jailed.
Some of these political activists have been given lengthy jail terms – one being sentenced to 104 years in November 2008, while 23 others were sentenced to 65 years.
We have recently highlighted ten individual cases in order to demonstrate the ongoing political repression in Myanmar in the last two decades.
A long list of crimes
Today’s guilty verdict can only be added to the already long list of the junta’s crimes. In addition to locking up political dissidents and violently oppressing peaceful protests, the atrocities committed against ethnic minorities amount to crimes against humanity, as Amnesty International has documented. Additionally, the American Association for the Advancement of Science has used high resolution satellite images to document human rights abuses in eastern Burma.
MYANMAR - Tensions rise in anticipition of verdict
The situation in Myanmar (Burma) is getting more tense this week in anticipation of a verdict against Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi on Tuesday, August 11. She is currently held in Myanmar’s notorious Insein prison, awaiting her verdict in a trial that has gathered worldwide attention. Given the fact that the “Four Eights” anniversary is to take place only 3 days prior to the release of Aung San Suu Kyi’s verdict, these two highly politically charged events can prove to be a galvanizing force for major protests. Looking at the regime’s track record of violent suppression of any dissent, recent developments justify major concern of what will happen in the country in the next few days. Last week, authorities detained 30 members of the National League for Democracy (NLD), in an apparent attempt to block them from organizing protests on July 31, the day the verdict was originally expected. All those arrested are at risk of torture. While some of the opposition members were released, further arrests can be expected in the run up to the announcement of the verdict. If there are outbreaks of demonstrations in spite of government attempts to forestall them, there is the added concern that we will see violent tactics by the police and armed forces to suppress them like the ones we saw in the uprisings of August and September of 2007. Reports are indicating that the regime has heightened its alert and has deployed security forces in strategic areas of the country, something that is very characteristic of the government preparations to prevent suspected dissent.
“(…) we have consistently had a very consistent public message that we believe that she should be immediately and unconditionally released, along with the 2,100 other political prisoners in Burma. I know Secretary Clinton has been very engaged with her colleagues, with some of her foreign minister colleagues. It was a topic at the ASEAN meeting, and she took every opportunity to urge her colleagues to make a similar message on the need for Aung San Suu Kyi to be released conditionally.” – Ian Kelly, Department of State, July 30, 2009.
“Suu Kyi’s continued detention, isolation, and show trial based on spurious charges cast serious doubt on the Burmese regime’s willingness to be a responsible member of the international community.” President Obama, May 26, 2009.
SRI LANKA - Local elections without independent monitors
There are growing concerns over the upcoming August 8 local elections due to the prohibition of media and independent monitors of the first elections since the military defeat of the Tamil Tigers. This Saturday’s elections in the cities of Vavuniya and Jaffna are being hyped up by the government as the first democratic elections in this war-torn region.
The two cities fall just on the other side of the former de facto state of the Tamil Tigers in the north. Tamils remain the majority in the area. The cities in which the elections are held are surrounded by checkpoints, only accessible with permission from the Defense Ministry. Lakshman Hulugalle, the head of the government’s security information center, stated that reporters will not be allowed into the cities to report on the elections, relying solely on handouts from the government. The Sri Lankan president Mahinda Rajapaksa originally stated to let civilians who lived in the Tamil Tigers’ self-declared state to vote in an election. However, close to 300,000 civilians are currently held in military run de-facto internment camps.
August 11: Verdict against Aung San Suu Kyi expected
Jacki Mowery, Anil Raj and Jim Roberts contributed to this post.
Human Rights Flashpoints is a weekly column about countries at risk of escalating human rights violations and is brought to you by AIUSA’s Crisis Prevention and Response team.
Yesterday, twenty years after being declared a prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International (with more than 13 of those 20 years spent under house arrest) Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, leader of the Myanmar opposition party the National League for Democracy, was awarded Amnesty International’s most prestigious honor, the “Ambassador of Conscience” Award, recognizing her exceptional leadership in the fight to protect and promote human rights. Amnesty International and the Irish rock band U2 announced the award in Dublin, Ireland.
Though her house detention order was set to expire on May 27, 2009, Aung San Suu Kyi was instead arrested on grounds that she had violated the terms and conditions of her house arrest, and she was placed on trial on May 18. If convicted, she could face up to five years in prison.
Daw Aung San Suu Kyi is one of over 2,100 others currently imprisoned in Myanmar for their political beliefs, and all of these individuals should be freed. As Amnesty International’s Secretary General Irene Khan so eloquently put, “In those long and often dark years Daw Aung San Suu Kyi has remained a symbol of hope, courage and the undying defense of human rights, not only to the people of Myanmar but to people around the world.” Indeed, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi is a beacon of hope for some, a leader for many and an inspiration to us all. Learn more about Aung San Suu Kyi and take action!
I can’t tell you how disappointed I am. The UN Human Rights Council concluded its special session on Sri Lanka yesterday by adopting a resolution proposed by the Sri Lankan government. The Council’s session should have been used to examine the reports of human rights violations and war crimes occurring during the recent fighting between the Sri Lankan security forces and the opposition Tamil Tigers. On May 17, the Sri Lankan government had announced that it had defeated the Tigers, recapturing all the territory controlled by them and killing their leaders. The Tigers had been fighting over the past 26 years to establish an independent state for the Tamil minority in the north and east of the country. Both sides have committed gross human rights violations and war crimes over the course of the conflict.
Amnesty International had called for the Council to set up a fact-finding mission to look into allegations of abuses of human rights and international humanitarian law by both sides. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights told the Council’s special session that an independent, international investigation should be undertaken into these abuses. Both also called for the Sri Lankan government to give journalists and aid agencies unimpeded access to the hundreds of thousands of displaced civilians who’ve been placed by the government in overcrowded internment camps which they can’t leave.
Of course, the Council’s resolution, since it was drafted by the Sri Lankan government, does none of these things. While condemning the Tigers, it makes no mention of abuses committed by the government forces. It simply acknowledges that the Sri Lankan government would provide aid agencies with access “as may be appropriate” to the displaced civilians.
What’s next for the Human Rights Council – asking the Sudanese government to draft a resolution on Darfur? asking the government of Myanmar to draft a resolution on Aung San Suu Kyi? The Council could still redeem itself; its next regular session starts next Monday, June 2. The Council should take up action again on Sri Lanka and this time live up to its responsibilities by establishing an international investigation into the abuses committed by both sides and ensuring unimpeded access for aid agencies and the media to the displaced civilians.
Yesterday was a very sad day for the cause of human rights in Sri Lanka. Let’s hope it’s not repeated.
Myanmar's Insein Prison, where Auung San Suu Kyi and hundreds of others are held (c) Digital Globe 2008. Image taken from Google Earth
Myanmar’s opposition leader and Nobel prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi has been brought to the country’s infamous Insein (pronounced “insane”) prison, to face trial on May 18. The prison has been described as the “darkest hell-hole in Burma” and houses many of the country’s more than 2,100 political prisoners. Just recently, after years of campaigning by Amnesty International, Mah Khin Khin Leh has been released from there.
Aung San Suu Kyi’s transfer to Insein prison has sparked international outcry, led by Amnesty International activists. The UN Special Rapporteur for human rights in Myanmar, Tomas Ojea Quintana, made the following statement yesterday : “I call on the government of Myanmar [Burma] to release Aung San Suu Kyi and her aides unconditionally”.
The BBC has a good report summarizing the events of the last few days.
Myanmar’s (Burma) pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi was charged today with violating the terms of her house arrest after an American man allegedly snuck into her home last week. She now faces a prison term of up to five years – just weeks before her house arrest was set to expire on May 27th.
With general elections coming up next year many have questioned the timing of the arrest as pretext to prevent Suu Kyi’s involvement. Is it merely a convenient coincidence? You decide.
Suu Kyi’s female companion, Khin Khin Win, and Khin Khin Win’s daughter were also arrested at the same time. Amnesty International is demanding that the U.N. Security Council, notably China and Japan, and ASEAN countries, urgently intervene to secure their release. They are best placed to bring the necessary pressure to bear on the Myanmar government.
Aung San Suu Kyi, Khin Khin Win and her daughter are now among the more than 2,100 political prisoners currently being held in prison in Myanmar. Conditions in Myanmar prisons are extremely bad and jeopardize the health of prisoners. Take action now to demand Suu Kyi’s and other political prisoners’ immediate release from prison!
Amnesty International works to protect human rights worldwide. We have more than 2.2 million supporters, activists and volunteers in over 150 countries, and are completely independent from government, corporate or national interests.
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Sarnata Reynolds is the Refugee Program Director at Amnesty International USA where she promotes the enforcement of international human rights standards pertaining to refugees, asylum seekers, and migrants. See all »
Amnesty International’s focus will be the new campaign 
