Photocall and Media Opportunity – Saturday 18 June 2005
11.00am: Official ceremony – City Chambers. Ceremony to award Suu Kyi Freedom of the City at the City Chambers, Royal Mile, Edinburgh, Scotland, UK.
11.45am: Photo opportunity and interviews – City Chambers. As Aung San Suu Kyi is confined to a now dilapidated, two-storey house sealed off by security forces in Burma, she will not be able to collect the award personally. A City Officer will place the scroll on an empty chair. A portrait of Suu Kyi on the chair will also be on display.
12.40pm: Photo opportunity – West Princes Street Gardens. Scottish piper and Edinburgh’s High Constables in ceremonial dress (top hats and batons) will join school-children, monk and dancers in traditional Burmese costume to lead Edinburgh’s Lord Provost, Lesley Hinds, and guests to tree planting ceremony in West Princes Street Gardens, Edinburgh.
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MEDIA RELEASE
SUU KYI PRESENTED WITH FREEDOM OF THE CITY, EDINBURGH
Edinburgh joins worldwide campaign to set Nobel Peace Prize laureate free
The City of Edinburgh will be joining the global protests that draw attention to the plight of Burma’s pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi as she marks her 60th birthday and 2,523rd day under house arrest.
The Council will mark her 60th birthday by conferring its highest honour – the title of Freedom of the City – followed by a commemorative tree-planting ceremony in her honour. Across the world, thousands of birthday cards have been sent to her home and Irish pop star Damien Rice will release a song.
As leader of National League for Democracy, Suu Kyi was placed under house arrest in 1989 where she has remained for nine of 16 years despite the NLD winning 80 per cent of vote in the 1990 elections. Suu Kyi has always advocated dialogue and a Gandhi-like resistance to the military regime that brutally crushed her followers.
This is only the second time the Council has awarded Freedom of the City to a person outside Edinburgh. The first time was to the South African leader Nelson Mandela.
The Lord Provost Lesley Hinds explains, “Like Nelson Mandela before her, Aung San Suu Kyi has come to be seen internationally as a symbol of peaceful resistance in the face of oppression. By honouring her Edinburgh citizens will be publicly supporting her tireless work for democracy and human rights. How sad that our gift of Freedom of City cannot include the gift of freedom from house arrest and persecution, nor freedom for the many prisoners of conscience detained in Burma today.”
Messages of support for the ceremony have been received from individuals and organisations across the world including Sir Sean Connery, also a Freeman of the City of Edinburgh, First Minister Jack McConnell and Foreign and Commonwealth Minister Dr Ian Pearson.
Notes to editors:
1. Guest speakers will include Director of Amnesty UK Kate Allen, Aung San Oo, National League for Democracy and Anna Roberts, Director of UK Burma Campaign. Suu Kyi’s son Kim Aris will also be present.
2. Each performer will be carrying a sculpture on poles- a dream-catcher made of barbed wire, the largest being 5ft. Scottish artist George Wylie created the sculptures.
3. Freedom of the City is the highest honour that the city of Edinburgh can bestow. It is symbolic of the esteem that the city holds that person. Historically it has meant the ability to go anywhere in the city without paying tolls and charges. Now it is more symbolic and means that a warm welcome anywhere in the city will be offered to the recipient and expresses the high regard in which the recipient is held.
4. Burma is also known as Myanmar.