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YANGON: Myanmar’s pro-democracy party said Tuesday that the
ongoing house arrest of its leader Aung San Suu Kyi was illegal and
demanded the ruling junta accept an appeal against her detention.
The military regime, which calls itself the
State Peace and Development Council, extended the Nobel peace
prizewinner’s house arrest by one year on May 27. Her latest
period of detention began in 2003.
“The NLD will submit an appeal under the law
as the extension of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s detention was against
the law and unfair,” her National League for Democracy (NLD) party
said in a statement.
“If the State Peace and Development Council
assumes that the extension of the detention of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi
was in accordance with the law, we ask them to accept the appeal and
open the case in accordance with the law.”
Aung San Suu Kyi was first detained in 1989, and
has spent most of the last 18 years as a prisoner at her sprawling
lakeside Yangon home, with only brief spells of freedom.
The junta says they are keeping her locked away
under a 1975 law to protect the state from “destructive
elements,” but legal experts say that under Myanmar law, a person
cannot be held without charge or trial for more than five years.
The NLD did not say on what legal basis they
would challenge their leader’s house arrest, but also branded the
detention of their vice chairman Tin Oo and two other senior party
members illegal.
Aung San Suu Kyi led her NLD to a landslide
victory in 1990 elections, but ruling junta never allowed them to
take office.
Keeping her under house arrest has effectively
silenced the woman known here simply as “The Lady,” while
leaving her party rudderless.
-- AFP
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