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Edinburgh honours president under house arrest in Burma

Marking the 60th birthday of democracy campaigner and Nobel prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi, Edinburgh will grant her the Freedom of the City this month, as UNISON bestows her with honorary membership at its Conference in Glasgow.

It all started from motions by UNISON's City of Edinburgh Branch to the national union and a campaign with the Council to draw attention to the suffering of the people of Burma.

Last year, the Council unanimously voted to bestow its highest honour on Aung San Suu Kyi, who joins fellow Nobel Peace Laureate Nelson Mandela, as one of only two people not of Edinburgh origin to ever receive this award.

UNISON honorary membership was also previously granted to Nelson Mandela. On his release he spoke warmly of the strength it gave him to know that the outside world was campaigning.

In making this award, the Council has taken an active decision to raise public awareness about the continuing human rights abuses in Burma - a country with long standing connections with Scotland, where 60 years ago many Scots served in the Second World War.

Dr Sein Win, the Prime Minister in exile of Burma has been invited to Edinburgh by the International Development Group, UNISON and the City of Edinburgh Council for the events.

Now based in the US, Dr Sein Win has sacrificed his family life to campaign internationally to restore democracy and human rights to Burma. His wife and six year old daughter remained in Burma after he was force to flee for his life and liberty in 1991. They have not been allowed any contact since then.

Myanmar, as Burma is now called by the ruling junta, is led by one of the most brutal military dictatorships in the world; a dictatorship charged by the United Nations with a "crime against humanity" for its systematic abuses of human rights, and condemned internationally for refusing to transfer power to the legally elected Government of the country - the party led by Aung San Suu Kyi.

Aung San Suu Kyi is now serving her third term of house arrest. She was re-arrested on 30 May 2003 after the regime's militia attacked her convoy and killed up to 100 of her supporters.

The National League for continued over From page 1 Democracy (NLD) won a resounding victory in the 1990 Burmese elections, winning over 80 percent of the Parliamentary seats at stake.

The ruling military junta launched a systematic campaign to prevent the NLD from forming a government and kept NLD President Daw Aung San Suu Kyi under house arrest along with over 1300 other democracy activists.

The Freedom award will be presented by Lord Provost Lesley Hinds to Aung San Suu Kyi's son, Kim Aris, at a ceremony on Saturday 18th June in the City Chambers, with a magnolia tree planted in her honour in Princes Street Gardens. This will be followed by a street party rally in Parliament Square from 2pm to 5pm hosted jointly by Amnesty International, Burma Educational Scholarship Trust, the Burma Campaign and the Scottish Refugee Council.