Free Republic

Myanmar Regime Seizes Bank Accounts of Soros' Open Society Foundation The military regime has seized control of the bank accounts of billionaire George Soros’ Open Society Foundation (OSF) in Myanmar and announced that it will take legal action against the foundation, which is accused of violating restrictions on the activities of such organizations. On Monday, military-controlled MRTV announced that the military had issued arrest warrants for 11 staff members of OSF Myanmar, including its head and deputy head, on suspicion of giving financial support to the civil disobedience movement against the military junta. The regime also claimed that the world’s...

Pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi claimed on Monday a by-election landslide for her party, which she hoped would mark the beginning of a new era for Myanmar after a historic vote that could prompt the West to end sanctions. The charismatic Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate who led the struggle against military rule in the former Burma for two decades, was one of 44 candidates her National League for Democracy Party (NLD) said won all but one of the legislative seats being contested. The by-elections followed a year of astonishing change for a country that was in...

Burma's Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi has won a by-election for parliament, her party says, after a landmark vote that saw 45 seats contested. Ms Suu Kyi's opposition National League for Democracy (NLD) said she had easily won in Kawhmu. Official results are not expected until later in the week. In a statement, she urged supporters to show restraint in their celebrations. The vote is a key test of political reforms, though the army and its allies dominate the 664-seat parliament. The NLD was competing in its first elections since 1990. 'Dignified' Thousands of people who gathered outside the...

Myanmar's government invited pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi to a meeting Friday with the new president, an official said, in the clearest step toward a political dialogue since she was released from house arrest in November.

Obama urges Burma to free Suu Kyi US President Barack Obama has urged Burma's prime minister to release the pro-democracy leader, Aung San Suu Kyi. Mr Obama delivered the message as he met leaders of the Asean grouping of south-east Asian nations in Singapore.

Singapore - In Singapore, United Nations special envoy Ibrahim Gambari has read a declaration by the Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi after meeting the Nobel prize winner in Myanmar. In it Ms Suu Kyi says she wants a dialogue with the junta as quickly as possible for the sake of the nation. On Friday, she will meet an official appointed by the junta for contact with the opposition. Ms Suu Kyi, who is under house arrest, will also be allowed to meet members of her party the NLD.

Pro-Democracy Leader Aung San Suu Kyi Rallies Set Worldwide October 24, 2007 Einnor Mendoza - AHN News Writer Yangon, Burma (AHN) - A massive rally worldwide will be launched with Burma's detained pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi as its centerpiece and other political prisoners in the country. Rallies will be held in 12 cities worldwide to protest the Burma's military junta's house 12-year detention of Suu Kyi. Demonstrations will be set up in Chinese embassies, following reports that Beijing would play a key role in freeing Suu Kyi, BBC News reported. The pro-Suu Kyi rallies will be conducted in...

It is not power that corrupts but fear. Fear of losing power corrupts those who wield it and the fear of the scourge of power those who are subject to it." The person who wrote this is a frail, highly sensitive woman, deeply influenced by Mahatma Gandhi's philosophy of non-violence, and who has been under house arrest in Rangoon for the past five years, Nobel Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi. Her fault? Her emergence as Burma's voice of conscience. It seems that the people of her country, who have repeatedly displayed remarkable courage by peacefully demanding democracy despite being put...

Myanmar protesters hit 100,000 mark As many as 100,000 anti-government protesters led by a phalanx of Buddhist monks marched Monday through Yangon, the largest crowd to demonstrate in Myanmar's biggest city since a 1988 pro-democracy uprising that was brutally crushed by the military. From the front of the march, witnesses could see a one-mile stretch of eight-lane road was filled with people. Some participants said there were several hundred thousand marchers in their ranks, but an international aid agency official with employees monitoring the crowd estimated said the size was well over 50,000 and approaching 100,000. It was the latest...

20,000 march against Myanmar government About 20,000 people led by Buddhist monks demonstrated against Myanmar's military junta Sunday, in what has quickly become the largest anti-government demonstrations since the failed democratic uprising in 1988. The 10,000 monks marched from Yangon's famous Shwedagon Pagoda to the nearby Sule Pagoda before passing the U.S. Embassy, witnesses said. Monks shouted support for detained democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, while the crowd of 10,000 protected them by forming a human chain along the route. It was the sixth straight day monks have marched in Yangon, and came a day after they were allowed...

10,000 protest against Myanmar gov't Myanmar police allowed a group of more than 500 Buddhist monks to march Saturday past the house where opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi is detained, witnesses said, on a day that saw some of the largest protests since 1988. A monk said in a speech later to anti-government protesters that Suu Kyi came to her gate to greet them. His account could not immediately be confirmed. Suu Kyi has been under detention continuously since May 2003 at her Yangon home, and for 11 of the past 18 years. The monks stopped briefly in front...

Burma's military rulers have extended the detention under house arrest of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, government officials have said. Ms Suu Kyi's latest period under house arrest expired on Saturday, raising hopes that she would be released. The pro-democracy leader has been held since May 2003, and has spent 10 of the last 16 years under house arrest. On Friday UN Secretary General Kofi Annan appealed to the head of Burma's military junta to free Ms Suu Kyi. "I am relying on you, General Than Shwe, to do the right thing," Mr Annan said, addressing the head of...

Myanmar Leader Suu Kyi Calls House Arrest Extension Illegal May 27, 2006 YANGON, Myanmar — The political party of Myanmar's detained pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi said the extension of her house arrest Saturday is unlawful and would hurt efforts at national reconciliation. The statement from the National League from Democracy was its first public acknowledgment that the ruling junta had renewed an order confining Suu Kyi to her home. The government has still not made any official announcement of its action. The statement said the party had "learnt with regret that authorities have continued to hold ... Aung...

UNITED NATIONS (AP) - The United States raised the plight of Myanmar's detained pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi and 1,300 other political prisoners on Friday, but Russia and China blocked U.N. Security Council discussion of actions by the country's ruling military junta. Deputy U.S. Ambassador Gerald Scott said the Bush administration felt it was important to remind the international community that the situation continues to decline. When Scott raised the issue, diplomats said several nations echoed U.S. concerns but Russia and China objected to putting Myanmar on the council's agenda. Unless an issue is on the council's agenda, it...

The Associated Press - BANGKOK, Thailand - The Georgia-based rock band R.E.M. will broadcast a song dedicated to Myanmar's detained pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi into the military-ruled country via satellite television to mark her 60th birthday, a U.S.-based activist group said. The group will perform the unspecified song for the Nobel Peace Prize laureate at its June 19 concert in Dublin, Ireland, and air it inside Myanmar though an Oslo-based dissident television station, the U.S. Campaign for Burma said in a statement dated Wednesday. Myanmar was formerly known as Burma. The broadcast is part of a series...

YANGON (Reuters) - Myanmar democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi has been told by police she is being held under house arrest under a law which allows for such detention for up to a year, an opposition spokesman says. U Lwin, spokesman for Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy, said on Monday that police visited her lakeside villa in Yangon, where she has been under house arrest since September 26, to tell her the detention had been extended. No details were available beyond the legal code under which she can be kept under house arrest for 12 months, but U...

Burma PM 'behind Suu Kyi attack' From correspondents in Washington 21oct04 THE new prime minister of military-ruled Burma was directly behind an attack on opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi and her convoy last year, the US charged today. US State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said Washington had a credible report that Lieutenant General Soe Win, an ally of hardline junta chief Than Shwe, was "directly involved in the decision to carry out the brutal attack on Aung San Suu Kyi and her convoy on May 30, 2003". "We did look into the matter extensively," Mr Boucher said when asked...

<p>YANGOON, Myanmar, Jun. 19 (UPI) -- Pro-democracy activists in Myanmar marked the 59th birthday of opposition leader Aun San Suu Kyi with demonstrations in the capital, Yangoon.</p> <p>Hundreds of demonstrators went to the headquarters of her National League for Democracy where monks offered prayers and party representatives called for her release, the BBC reported.</p>

Burma democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi will be freed from house arrest and her National League for Democracy (NLD) invited to a constitutional conference next month, Burma's foreign minister has told NHK television. "Original members who attended, including the NLD, will be invited," Foreign Minister Win Aung told Japan's NHK television in Bangkok, where he was due to meet his Thai counterpart. Asked if Ms Suu Kyi would be released before the May 17 start of the conference, Win Mr Aung said, "yes". He added it was too early to give a precise date. The military government, under pressure...

Bangkok: Burma's junta faces a roasting from US President George W. Bush at next week's APEC leaders meetings over the continued detention of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi. Bangkok: Burma's junta faces a roasting from US President George W. Bush at next week's APEC leaders meetings over the continued detention of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi. Mr Bush also is expected to urge APEC leaders to do more to push for democratic reforms in Burma, which has been run for four decades by the military. Mr Bush's National Security Adviser, Condoleezza Rice, has said the President will make...