A Press Release from FREEDOM NOW
Just after midnight on Friday, June 16th, in Geneva, Switzerland, Freedom Now filed the first case before the newly established UN Human Rights Council. The organization filed its Petition to the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention on behalf of Aung San Suu Kyi, the world’s only imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, after being retained by a member of her family.
Under UN General Assembly Resolution 60/251, the UN Commission on Human Rights was abolished on June 16, 2006, and the new Human Rights Council assumed all mandates of the Commission, including the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention.
Previously, the Working Group has issued three opinions – 8/1992, 2/2002, and 9/2004 – that Ms. Suu Kyi’s house arrest is in violation of international law. After Ms. Suu Kyi’s political party and its allies won the 1990 elections in Burma with more than 80% of the vote, she has spent more than 10 of the last 16 years under house arrest.
This new Petition to the Working Group is necessary because Opinion No. 9/2004 expired when the military junta in Burma issued a new detention order for an additional year of house arrest on May 27, 2006. Ms. Suu Kyi is being detained under Article 10(b) of the 1975 State Protection Law, which allows up to five years of detention without charge or trial.
The military junta extended its house arrest of Ms. Suu Kyi despite an international outcry demanding her release. “I’m relying on you, General Than Shwe, to do the right thing,” said UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, in urging her release the day before the Burmese junta issued the new detention order. “We are honored to submit this Petition to the new Human Rights Council on behalf of Aung San Suu Kyi,” said Jared Genser, President of Freedom Now. “But the time has long passed when General Than Shwe and military junta in Burma should have been allowed by the international community to imprison Aung San Suu Kyi, who is a hero to the Burmese people and so many others around the world.”
For more information, visit [url=http://www.freedom-now.org]http://www.freedom-now.org[/url]