Burma extends Noble laureate’s detention

Burma’s military junta has extended opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s house arrest by one year, The Associated Press reported Tuesday.

Government officials extended the sentence despite worldwide appeals for the release of the Nobel laureate and democracy advocate who has been detained for 12 of the last 18 years.

The extension of the arrest, which has gone on uninterrupted since May 2003, also flies in the face of Burmese law, which stipulates that no one can be held longer than five years without being released or put on trail.

“Their failure to abide by their own law by refusing to release [Suu Kyi] . . . is a clear slap in the face to [U.N. Secretary-General] Ban Ki-moon and the ASEAN diplomats,” said U.S. lawyer Jared Genser, hired by the Suu Kyi family. “They are out of time to hold her under their own law.”

Burma has been controlled by military juntas since 1962. As the article notes, “The current junta seized power in 1988 and refused to honor the results of 1990 general elections that were won by Suu Kyi’s party.”

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