Suu Kyi must be freed

Under Burmese law Aung San Suu Kyi must be released from house arrest at midnight, the beginning of Sunday May 25.

Freedom Now, an organization campaigning for prisoners of conscience worldwide, today demanded that Burma’s military junta free the democracy leader at the weekend. If it fails to do so, it pointed out, the junta will be in violation of its own laws. Suu Kyi, leader of the National League for Democracy, is the world’s only imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize Laureate.

Retained in 2006 by a member of her family, Freedom Now attorneys Jared Genser and Meghan Barron successfully obtained Opinion No. 2/2007 on May 8, 2007 from the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention that Ms. Suu Kyi’s ongoing detention under house arrest was a clear violation of international law and engaged in other advocacy activities on her behalf. As explained in the enclosed legal memorandum, her ordeal should be coming to an end.

Under Article 10(b) of Burma’s State Protection Law 1975, a person in Burma who is deemed a "threat to the sovereignty and security of the State and the peace of the people" may be detained for up to a maximum of five years through a restrictive order, renewable one year at a time. Initially detained after the Depayin massacre in May 2003, Ms. Suu Kyi’s house arrest was last extended on May 25, 2007. Therefore, her fifth and final year of house arrest allowable under Burmese law (though found to be in violation of international

law) will expire at the end of the day on May 24, 2008. "The timing couldn’t be better," remarked Freedom Now President Jared Genser. "If the Burmese junta abides by its own law, Aung San Suu Kyi will be able to attend the international aid conference scheduled for Sunday May 25th in person. And if General Than Shwe refuses to release her, it will be a slap in the face to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and the ASEAN diplomats who will be on hand to hear the junta’s request for $11 billion of international assistance," he added.

Previously, the Working Group issued three other opinions – 8/1992, 2/2002,and 9/2004 – that Ms. Suu Kyi’s prior terms of house arrest were also in violation of international law. After Ms. Suu Kyi’s political party and its allies won the 1990 parliamentary elections in Burma with more than 80% of the vote, she has spent more than 12 of the last 18 years under house arrest, and continuously since May 2003.

Freedom Now is a non-partisan, non-profit organization based in the United States that works to free prisoners of conscience worldwide.