Clinton also demanded that the military junta free John Yettaw, an American who was sentenced to seven years of hard labour for entering the detained democracy icon's home.
"She should not have been tried and she should not have been convicted," Clinton said during a visit to eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. "We continue to call for a release from her continuing house arrest."
"We also call for the release of more than 2,000 political prisoners including the American John Yettaw. We are concerned about the harsh sentence imposed on him, especially in light of his medical condition," she said.
A Myanmar court convicted Suu Kyi, 64, at the end of a marathon trial for breaching the terms of her detention by the ruling military junta, following a bizarre incident in which Yettaw swam uninvited to her home.
Yettaw, a 54-year-old US military veteran from Missouri, is diabetic and also suffers from epilepsy.
He was sentenced to seven years of hard labour and imprisonment -- three years for breaching security laws, three years for immigration violations and one year for a municipal charge of illegal swimming.
The case has drawn international outrage amid claims that the junta was concocting the charges to keep Suu Kyi locked up for the elections due in 2010, Myanmar's first since the cancelled vote of 1990.
"The Burmese junta should immediately end its repression of so many in its country and start a dialogue with the opposition and the ethnic groups. Otherwise the elections they have scheduled for next year will have absolutely no legitimacy," Clinton said.
Aung San Suu Kyi’s sentence ‘unacceptable’: Amnesty
New Delhi (Mizzima) – Amnesty International on Tuesday said the verdict of 18 months suspended sentence handed down to Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, is “unacceptable” and urged the international community not to take it as a concession.
The special court in Rangoon’s Insein prison on Tuesday convicted Aung San Suu Kyi, sentencing her to three years in prison with hard labour. But the court’s decision was overridden by the country’s military supremo Snr. Gen Than Shwe who ordered that it be changed to half the sentence, i.e 18 months, as a suspended sentence.
Benjamin Zawacki, Burma researcher of Amnesty International said the suspended sentence on Aung San Suu Kyi should not be viewed as a concession by the Burmese regime, as the whole trial and earlier detentions are all illegal.
“Whether or not the sentence is a concession, the point is that the sentence, the trial and detention all of it are illegal,” Zawacki said. “Anything except unconditional release is illegal and unacceptable
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