Suu Kyi’s release demanded

Several dozens of Rakhaing supporters of Burma’s long incarcerated democratic leader Aung San Suu Kyi staged demonstration in front of city’s National Eidgah yesterday morning demanding her immediate release.
Rakhaing Women’s Union (RWU) organized the hour-long programme and later placed their four-point demand at a press a briefing.
Addressing the press briefing, RWU chairperson Saw Mra Raza Linn demanded immediate release of their democratic leader Aung San Suu Kyi. “We are very concerned over the health condition of Suu Kyi… she was seriously ill last week but denied medical treatment by the Junta regime,” she said.
Linn also demanded release of other political prisoners, saying that political prisoners in Burma are “routinely subjected to torture and often denied medical treatment.”
She urged the international community to create pressure on the military junta of Burma for holding free and fair election in the country.
The RWU chairperson said Nobel laureate pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi of Burma went on trial at Insein prison on Monday charged with violating her house arrest by allowing US national John Yettaw to spend two days at her residence.
She told the reporters that Suu Kyi faces up to five years in jail and could be barred from standing in elections promised by the ruling junta in 2010 if convicted on the charges.
The junta, headed by Senior General Than Shwe has kept Aung San Suu Kyi in detention for a total of 13 years since 1990, when it refused to recognize her party’s landslide victory in Myanmar’s last elections.
When contacted, Prof Ehsanul Haq of Dhaka University’s International Relations Department told UNB that the trial of Suu Kyi was a mockery or one sided to ensure the State Peace and Development Council’s (SPDC) hold on power in Burma forever.
He said Suu Kyi could be barred from getting justice while the pro-SPDC political organization might get some privileges in the next year’s election due to the trial.
Aung San Suu Kyi is already barred from becoming president after the 1990 elections as she had children with her British husband Michael Aris, an academic who died in 1999.
Meanwhile, Bangladesh Human Rights Commission has condemned sending of Suu Kyi from house arrest to prison by the military junta in Myanmar on the pretext of holding trial as she met with a foreign national.
In a joint press release yesterday, BHRC chairman Justice AKM Sadeque and secretary general Saiful Islam Dildar called upon the international community to put “strong pressure” on Myanmar government for the release of Aung San Suu Kyi.

Courtesy of UNB, Dhaka