Brown blasts Myanmar junta's treatment of Suu Kyi

Wed, 30 Dec 2009

British Prime Minister has written to Aung San Suu Kyi, taking a tough tone with Myanmar's ruling junta which keeps the opposition leader detained.

"Your continuing detention is only the most visible evidence of the bad faith of a regime which has so far shown no signs of listening to regional or international calls for an end to its violent behavior," Gordon Brown wrote on Tuesday, AFP reported.

The leader of National League for Democracy (NLD) has spent 14 of the past 20 years in detention. She has had her sentence extended by 18 moths for hosting an American national in her residence for two days in violation of her house arrest terms.

The extension to her house arrest has been denounced as a means of keeping the human rights activist out of next year's elections.

"I continue to call upon the regime to engage with you and allow you further contact with diplomats in Rangoon, and to start a genuine dialogue," Brown added.

"If the scheduled elections proceed under a rigged constitution, with opposition leaders excluded and with no international oversight, the military rulers will be condemning Burma (Myanmar) to more years of diplomatic isolation and economic stagnation," claimed the premier in the letter which has been submitted to the authorities in Myanmar. If held as scheduled, the polls would be the first since 1990.

Myanmar, already under crippling sanctions, faces intense international pressure, especially from the United States, to free Suu Kyi.

Source: PressTV.
Link: http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=114995§ionid=351020601.