Glenys Kinnock EP/ASE
Labour Wales – Llafur Cymru
China holds key to Burma’s freedom, says MEP
– World marks 12 years detention for Aung San Suu Kyi
CHINA holds the key to freedom for Aung San Suu Kyi and the people of Burma, Euro-MP and Burma Campaign patron GLENYS KINNOCK today said as she marked the democracy leader’s 12 years of detention.
Speaking from Strasbourg, GLENYS KINNOCK, who has previously travelled to Burma to meet with Aung San Suu Kyi, the only imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, said:
“Aung San Suu Kyi symbolises the Burmese people’s struggle for freedom. She is isolated, denied her liberty, her voice stifled and her communications cut.
“Yet for 4,384 days she has stood in firm and brave defiance of Burma’s brutal military junta, refusing to leave her country until democracy and human rights are restored.
“Her detention is illegal, as is the rape, torture and brutality the Burmese regime engages in. The international community must act to secure her release and the release of all political prisoners in Burma.
“I welcome the EU’s strengthened sanctions and its serious threat of an investment ban if the regime does not engage with reform. Now China, which has blocked previous UN Security Council actions, must step-up to its global responsibility.
“China funds the Burmese regime, arms the regime, and protects it from international pressure. It is China that holds the key to Aung San Suu Kyi’s freedom and the freedom of the people of Burma.”
Notes
Campaigners will mark the day by gathering outside Chinese embassies in cities around the world, shackled and dressed in the white cloth of Burmese political prisoners.
Aung San Suu Kyi led her political party the National League for Democracy (NLD) to a landslide 82% victory in Burma’s last democratic election in 1990. The military regime has refused to recognize the results, and has kept her under house arrest for 12 of the past 17 years.
Aung San Suu Kyi’s current period of detention began on May 30th 2003 when a convoy she was travelling in was attacked by a regime-run militia, the Union Solidarity Development Association (USDA). USDA thugs beat around 100 NLD supporters to death in a failed assassination attempt against Aung San Suu Kyi.
In January 2007 the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called for the release of Aung San Suu Kyi.
In June 2007 the UN declared Aung San Suu Kyi’s detention to be illegal.
Aung San Suu Kyi has won over 60 international awards for her efforts to promote peaceful change in Burma, including the Nobel Prize and the Sakharov Prize from the European Parliament.
For more information please contact Lisa Stevens at the Labour European Office on 029 2022 7654 or 079 7367 8175.