Kyi Win said that his written request to meet with Suu Kyi was rejected by the security forces on Monday.
According to the correct procedure, I sent a written request to the Special Branch of Burma’s police on December 3,” Kyi Win said. “In the letter I requested a meeting with my client, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, over her pending case on December 9. However the Special Branch called me on December 8 and told me they could not permit me to meet with her.” Kyi Win said that it was imperative he meet with Suu Kyi to tell her that he has filed an appeal against her continued house arrest to the appeals court in Naypyidaw, the military junta’s new capital.The Rangoon lawyer said that, although he was denied, Suu Kyi’s doctor, Tin Myo Win, was able to visit her at her lakeside residence on December 4 for about four hours.Kyi Win insisted he would try again. “I will repeat my request for a meeting with Daw Aung San Suu Kyi to the appeals court,” he said. Kyi Win originally filed an appeal against Suu Kyi’s continued house arrest to the appeals court in October. Prior to that, he said he had met with her five times to discuss the case. After meeting with Suu Kyi in early September, Kyi Win said that the opposition leader had lost weight and was shunning her daily food deliveries until her right to receive personal mail, magazines and newspapers had been restored. At that time, visits by her doctor were also restricted.The Burmese junta caved in to Suu Kyi’s demands in mid-September. In return, the opposition leader agreed to accept deliveries of food and household supplies.Since July 1989, pro-democracy icon Suu Kyi has been placed under house arrest or put in jail three times. She has spent 13 out of the past 19 years in detention.
Junta Has Crushed Peaceful Dissent: Laura Bush
“Children are conscripted as soldiers, and families are forced to perform life-threatening labor,” Bush told a select audience at the Council on Foreign Relations, a New York-based think tank, speaking on the occasion of Human Rights Day.
Bush, who has taken a personal interest in the plight of Burma, has been instrumental in shaping US policy on the country during her eight years in the White House. She has spent a significant amount of time talking about the country, its people and the brutality of its military rulers.
“The women of Burma have responded to this brutality with inspiring courage,” she said, adding that she herself has been inspired by the leadership and courage of Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.
Referring to her frequent interaction with Burmese, Bush recalled her visit to the Thai-Burmese border in August, where she met Dr Cynthia Maung, who operates the Mae Tao clinic.
Hundreds of patients pass through the clinic’s doors every day. Most are migrant workers or refugees from Burma, while many others make the dangerous cross-border journey to Thailand because they have no access to health care in Burma.
“At Dr Cynthia’s clinic, I saw an American doctor performing eye surgery removing cataracts, which let people who had had these very severe cataracts see again for the first time, and it was a really—it was a thrill to get to see that. And also I saw victims of land mines waiting for treatment in the clinic,” she said.
Dr Cynthia left Burma in 1988, joining thousands of others who fled to Thailand following the military’s crackdown on a nationwide pro-democracy uprising. She crossed the border and opened the clinic expecting to be there for a few months, but 20 years later, she’s still there.
“The ruling junta has labeled Dr Cynthia an insurgent and an opium-smuggling terrorist. But she continues her work to give the people of Burma the care their government denies them,” Bush said.
Observing that a single voice can be a great weapon against a regime that denies basic human rights, Bush said in April she presented the Vital Voices Human Rights Global Leadership Award to Charm Tong.
At the age of 17, Charm Tong stood before the United Nations Commission on Human Rights to describe the military campaign being carried out against women in Burma’s Shan State.
“She spoke unflinchingly of rape and abuse, though her audience included representatives of the regime she condemned. Charm Tong continues to speak out about the regime’s abuses, and she ministers to the needs of those who have fled Burma,” the first lady said.
Bush also recounted the heroism of another Burmese woman, Su Su Nway, who defied junta representatives who tried to force her and her fellow villagers to repair a road.
“She brought the local officials to court under a law prohibiting forced labor—and she won. But the government filed a complaint against Su Su Nway for ‘insulting and disrupting a government official on duty.’ This labor activist was sentenced to 18 months in jail. She was released in June 2006 and then returned immediately to advocate for human rights. Then she was arrested in … November 2007 after posting fliers near a UN official’s hotel. She has since been sentenced to 12 years.”
Bush said all these female dissidents were following in the footsteps of Aung San Suu Kyi, the world’s only detained Nobel Peace Prize winner.
As leader of the democratically elected National League for Democracy (NLD), Aung San Suu Kyi has spent most of the past two decades under house arrest. The NLD won the last countrywide election in 1990, but has never been permitted to take power.
“Her example of strength has earned support from around the world, including from here in the United States,” Bush said, recalling bipartisan expressions of solidarity for the detained democracy icon in the US Senate.
Bush also took aim at Snr-Gen Than Shwe, who heads the Burmese junta, for his ongoing campaign to silence opponents of the regime ahead of planned elections in 2010, despite promises of working toward a democratic transition for his country.
“Since the Saffron Revolution of 2007, the number of political prisoners in Burma has increased from around 1,100 to more than 2,100 now. Female activist Nilar Thein was forced to leave her newborn child and flee into hiding. After a year on the run, she was captured and jailed this September.
Bush, who has taken a personal interest in the plight of Burma, has been instrumental in shaping US policy on the country during her eight years in the White House. She has spent a significant amount of time talking about the country, its people and the brutality of its military rulers.
“The women of Burma have responded to this brutality with inspiring courage,” she said, adding that she herself has been inspired by the leadership and courage of Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.
Referring to her frequent interaction with Burmese, Bush recalled her visit to the Thai-Burmese border in August, where she met Dr Cynthia Maung, who operates the Mae Tao clinic.
Hundreds of patients pass through the clinic’s doors every day. Most are migrant workers or refugees from Burma, while many others make the dangerous cross-border journey to Thailand because they have no access to health care in Burma.
“At Dr Cynthia’s clinic, I saw an American doctor performing eye surgery removing cataracts, which let people who had had these very severe cataracts see again for the first time, and it was a really—it was a thrill to get to see that. And also I saw victims of land mines waiting for treatment in the clinic,” she said.
Dr Cynthia left Burma in 1988, joining thousands of others who fled to Thailand following the military’s crackdown on a nationwide pro-democracy uprising. She crossed the border and opened the clinic expecting to be there for a few months, but 20 years later, she’s still there.
“The ruling junta has labeled Dr Cynthia an insurgent and an opium-smuggling terrorist. But she continues her work to give the people of Burma the care their government denies them,” Bush said.
Observing that a single voice can be a great weapon against a regime that denies basic human rights, Bush said in April she presented the Vital Voices Human Rights Global Leadership Award to Charm Tong.
At the age of 17, Charm Tong stood before the United Nations Commission on Human Rights to describe the military campaign being carried out against women in Burma’s Shan State.
“She spoke unflinchingly of rape and abuse, though her audience included representatives of the regime she condemned. Charm Tong continues to speak out about the regime’s abuses, and she ministers to the needs of those who have fled Burma,” the first lady said.
Bush also recounted the heroism of another Burmese woman, Su Su Nway, who defied junta representatives who tried to force her and her fellow villagers to repair a road.
“She brought the local officials to court under a law prohibiting forced labor—and she won. But the government filed a complaint against Su Su Nway for ‘insulting and disrupting a government official on duty.’ This labor activist was sentenced to 18 months in jail. She was released in June 2006 and then returned immediately to advocate for human rights. Then she was arrested in … November 2007 after posting fliers near a UN official’s hotel. She has since been sentenced to 12 years.”
Bush said all these female dissidents were following in the footsteps of Aung San Suu Kyi, the world’s only detained Nobel Peace Prize winner.
As leader of the democratically elected National League for Democracy (NLD), Aung San Suu Kyi has spent most of the past two decades under house arrest. The NLD won the last countrywide election in 1990, but has never been permitted to take power.
“Her example of strength has earned support from around the world, including from here in the United States,” Bush said, recalling bipartisan expressions of solidarity for the detained democracy icon in the US Senate.
Bush also took aim at Snr-Gen Than Shwe, who heads the Burmese junta, for his ongoing campaign to silence opponents of the regime ahead of planned elections in 2010, despite promises of working toward a democratic transition for his country.
“Since the Saffron Revolution of 2007, the number of political prisoners in Burma has increased from around 1,100 to more than 2,100 now. Female activist Nilar Thein was forced to leave her newborn child and flee into hiding. After a year on the run, she was captured and jailed this September.
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