With renewed calls for the immediate and unconditional release of Burma’s pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, activists in the Philippines today held a rally in front of the Burma Embassy in line with the international celebration of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s 63rd birthday. June 19 is also declared as Burma Women’s Day.
With renewed calls for the immediate and unconditional release of Burma’s pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, activists in the Philippines today held a rally in front of the Burma Embassy in line with the international celebration of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s 63rd birthday. June 19 is also declared as Burma Women’s Day.
Saying that her continued detention is illegal, Free Burma Coalition Philippines commented that extending Daw Suu’s terms of house arrest is an act against international law.
Aung San Suu Kyi, the only Nobel Peace Prize laureate under house arrest, was greeted by a one year extension of detention as announced by the junta last month May 27. She has been in and out of house arrest for more than 12 of the past 18 years, amid increasingly vocal international demands for her immediate and unconditional release.
“Daw Suu’s continued detention will not produce any positive improvements in Burma. Political dialogue is the first crucial step by which Burma’s existing political conflicts can be effectively resolved. To that end, the military regime—the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC)- must immediately and unconditionally release all prisoners of conscience including Aung San Suu Kyi”, Egoy bans, spokesperson of the FBC-Phils said.
He added, “The world is tired of junta’s unfulfilled promises. It finds telling lies to the international community a comfortable pastime and preserves nothing but its personal interests. The military rulers should learn its lesson. There is no way Burma can achieve genuine national reconciliation if the generals continue to persecute those who oppose them.”
FBC-Phils likewise urged all international agencies like the United Nations and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to review reports of continuing women rights abuses in Burma especially against ethnic women who continue to suffer violence such as rape, discrimination, forced portering, and torture.
The junta is systematically using rape as a weapon in its so called anti-insurgency campaign. Women political prisoners on the other hand suffer the same degree of harassment in the hands of the prison guards and prison officials.
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