About Aung San Suu Kyi

Aung San Suu Kyi (pronounced Ong San Soo Chee), Burma's pro-democracy leader and Nobel Peace laureate,
symbolises the struggle of Burma's people to be free. She has been detained for over 13 years by the Burmese
regime for campaigning for human rights and democracy in Burma.

Recent developments

She is currently facing trial in Burma. She was on arrested on May 14th and is now being held in Insein Prison, a
prison notorious for its terrible conditions and horrific treatment of prisoners. Aung San Suu Kyi is being tried for
breaking the terms of her house arrest, which forbids visitors, after an American man, John Yettaw, swam across
Inya Lake and refused to leave her house. Her trial began on 18th May.

Aung San Suu Kyi has committed no crime, she is the victim of crime, yet is currently facing a sentence of 3-5
years. The United Nations has ruled that Aung San Suu Kyi's detention is illegal under international law, and also
under Burmese law. The United Nations Security Council has also told the dictatorship that they must release Aung
San Suu Kyi.

Political prisoners in Burma are routinely subjected to torture and often denied medical treatment. There are serious
concerns for Aung San Suu Kyi's health in these conditions, particularly as she has recently been seriously ill.

About Aung San Suu Kyi

She was born on June 19th, 1945 to Burma's independence hero, Aung San, who was assassinated when she was
only two years old. Aung San Suu Kyi was educated in Burma, India, and the United Kingdom. While studying at
Oxford University, she met Michael Aris, a Tibet scholar who she married in 1972. They had two sons, Alexander
and Kim. On March 27 1999, while Aung San Suu Kyi was in Burma, Michael Aris died of cancer in London. He
had petitioned the Burmese authorities to allow him to visit Suu Kyi one last time, but they had rejected his request.
He had not seen her since a Christmas visit in 1995. The government always urged Suu Kyi to join her family
abroad, but she knew that she would not be allowed to return.

Aung San Suu Kyi had returned to Burma in 1988 to nurse her dying mother and was immediately plunged into the
country's nationwide democracy uprising. Joining the newly-formed National League for Democracy (NLD), Suu
Kyi gave numerous speeches calling for freedom and democracy. The military regime responded to the uprising
with brute force, killing up to 5,000 demonstrators. Unable to maintain its grip on power, the regime was forced to
call a general election in 1990.As Aung San Suu Kyi began to campaign for the NLD, she and many others were
detained by the regime. Despite being held under house arrest, the NLD went on to win a staggering 82% of the
seats in parliament. The regime never recognized the results of the election.

Aung San Suu Kyi has been in and out of arrest ever since. She was held under house arrest from 1989-1995, and
again from 2000-2002. She was again arrested in May 2003 after the Depayin massacre, during which up to 100 of
her supporters were beaten to death by the regime's militia. Her phone line has been cut, her post is intercepted and
National League for Democracy volunteers providing security at her compound were removed in December 2004.

She has won numerous international awards, including the Nobel Peace Prize, the Sakharov Prize from the
European Parliament and the United States Presidential Medal of Freedom. She has called on people around the
world to join the struggle for freedom in Burma, saying "Please use your liberty to promote ours".

• You can find out more about Aung San Suu Kyi, including the latest news about her on the Burma Campaign UK's
website or Wikipedia
•

The British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, wrote about Aung San Suu Kyi in Chapter eight of his
book Courage - Gordon Brown, published by Bloomsbury. Read an extract from the book here.

• You can become a supporter of Aung San Suu Kyi on Facebook:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Aung-San-Suu-Kyi/9953503420