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NATIONAL LEAGUE FOR DEMOCRACY (LIBERATED AREA) USA BRANCH
Mr. Ban Ki-Moon
Secretary-General, United Nations
Subject: Release of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi & all Political Prisoners in Burma/Myanmar
You’re Excellencies,
We are writing to you today to urge you to call Burmese Regime for the unconditional release of Burma's political prisoners your top priority.
Burma's most well known political prisoner, democracy leader and Nobel Laureate, Aung San Suu Kyi, has now spent over 13 years (for 13 of the past 19 years) under house arrest without being committed any crime. She earned the respect and support of people across Burma and throughout the world for her peaceful resistance in the face of oppression.
Aung San Suu Kyi is just one of 2,137 political prisoners under arrest in Burma today. These prisoners have committed no crime; they are imprisoned for peacefully calling for democracy and human rights in Burma. There can be no political progress in Burma even though Aung San Suu Kyi and 2,137 other political prisoners are not free.
In 2007, following the brutal suppression of peaceful Saffron Monks protests in Burma, your own special adviser Ibrahim Gambari was given assurances that arrests of political activists would end. Despite this there are now almost double the numbers of political prisoners that there were before the uprising. Torture and mistreatment are endemic in Burma's jails, where many inmates are kept in their cells 24 hours a day, given inadequate food, and the International Committee of the Red Cross is denied access. We are deeply concerned that political prisoners are increasingly being denied access to medical treatment.
The Regime has claimed repeatedly that there are no political prisoners in Burma and that courts convicted all those arrested and imprisoned for criminal acts. Even so, the Burmese Military Regime at times purports to bow the international community's demands in order to avoid international pressure. The Regime claims that it has released tens of thousands of prisoners from various prisons as a special gesture to the United Nations. In reality, only a small number of political prisoners were included among those released.
The military junta even cynically released 9,002 criminal prisoners on 23 September 2008 – but only ten political prisoners were included. Most recently, the military junta even disdainfully released 6,313 criminal prisoners on 21 February 2009 - but only 23 political prisoners were included. Among the fewer than 20 political prisoners so far released is Dr. Zaw Myint Maung, who was elected to parliament in the annulled 1990 elections but was given a 20-year sentence in 1991. A number of monks were also given their freedom after being imprisoned in 2003 by having rejected a donation for their monasteries from General Khin Nyunt, who was Burma's prime minister until he was arrested in 2004.
While the regime released only a small number of political prisoners, a large number of democracy activists have been arrested and imprisoned. Therefore, despite repeated requests from the international community, the number of political prisoners in Burma has steadily increased in the last six years, from about 1,300, over 2,123 in September 2008 and in February 2009 to over 2,130.
The immediate and unconditional release of all political prisoners in Burma/Myanmar is an important benchmark for positive development and is necessary for a genuine national reconciliation process. Dramatic increases in the number of political prisoners show the junta's defiance of the United Nations and the international community, as well as its own people. This is a clear indication that the military junta continues forcing entire population and country to live under permanent military dictatorship.
Dr Gambari returned from his visit to Burma in January 2009 having failed to secure the release of any political prisoners. Higher level engagement is urgently needed to secure the release of all the political prisoners.
Thank you and we look forward to hearing from you.
ႏိုင္ငံေရး အက်ဥ္းသားမ်ား လြတ္ေျမာက္ေရးအတြက္ လက္မွတ္ေရးထိုးလိုသူမ်ား ေအာက္ပါလင့္တြင္ သြားေရာက္လက္မွတ္ေရးထိုး ႏိုင္ပါသည္။
If you want to sign for the political prisoners of Burma you can read & sign at (http://petitionspot.com/
Regards,
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