(ARTICLE 19/IFEX) – The following is an ARTICLE 19 press release: “Silence on Suu Kyi crisis not an option at UN Millennium Summit”, says human rights group London, 7 September: “Silence is not an option when a military government detains incommunicado the leader of a legitimate political party”, according to ARTICLE 19, an international freedom […]
(ARTICLE 19/IFEX) – The following is an ARTICLE 19 press release:
“Silence on Suu Kyi crisis not an option at UN Millennium Summit”, says human rights group
London, 7 September: “Silence is not an option when a military government detains incommunicado the leader of a legitimate political party”, according to ARTICLE 19, an international freedom of expression organisation with consultative status at the UN. Today the group voiced extreme concern for the well-being of Burmese political leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who has not been seen since she and a number of her colleagues were removed from a suburb of Rangoon in the middle of the night by police. (2)
Andrew Puddephatt, Executive Director of ARTICLE 19, called on UN leaders at the Millennium summit in New York to take action and said:
“Had the party been allowed to take power after the 1990 elections, we might have seen Aung San Suu Kyi sitting with the world’s leaders in New York today. As it is, she and the NLD have been among the military government’s most regular targets for suppression in its war on democracy, where freedom of expression has been one of the chief casualties.” (1)
Mr Puddephatt appealed for decisive action to other multilateral bodies as well:
“We also call on ASEAN and the EU to address the situation both in the short-term, by dispatching delegates to ensure in person that Aung San Suu Kyi and her colleagues are physically unharmed, and in the longer term by putting freedom of expression in Burma at the top of their individual and collective agendas. We look especially to the government of Vietnam, which currently holds the chair of ASEAN, to put human rights violations in Burma on the regional forum’s agenda.”(3)
The Burmese military government has stepped up harassment of the NLD during the latest stand-off, raiding the party’s headquarters and removing documents, confining a number of Central Executive Committee members to their homes, and reportedly imprisoning 16 youth activists and two senior NLD members.
Notes
1. The authorities have conducted a continuing campaign of harassment against the NLD since it was denied the right to take power after being elected with 85% of the vote in 1990.
2. As Aung San Suu Kyi and colleagues attempted to visit supporters outside Rangoon on 24 August, her car was blocked and the tyres let down by security. On 2 September, riot police removed them from the place where they had been and no independent verification has since been received of their well-being or whereabouts.
3. In July 2000, ASEAN agreed to set up a troika to deal with regional problems or conflicts that could affect the grouping’s stability.
4. ARTICLE 19’s report on Burma, Acts of Oppression: Censorship in Burma and the Law is at http://www.article19.org/docimages/443.htm
