Today, 19 June, is Aung San Suu Kyi´s 61st birthday. The Norwegian Burma Committee congratulates, but will not celebrate. The leader of Burma´s opposition is still under house arrest. Since 1989, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate of 1991 has been imprisoned for more than ten years. The human rights situation in Burma is deteriorating, Åse Sand, right, of the NBC reminds us. (19-JUNE-06)

Based on a press release from the Norwegian Burma Committee, this article has been prepared for publication by HRH / Niels Jacob Harbitz. Photo of Åse Sand: HRH / Niels Jacob Harbitz. Photo of Hina Jilani: Baard Brinchmann Løvvig. Photo Of Aung San Suu Kyu: IDEA. 

Aung San Suu Kyi. Photo IDEA.jpg27 May, Suu Kyi´s, left, house arrest was extended for another year. Members of her party, the National League for Democracy, are being forced by Burmese authorities to resign and leave their own organisation. The military regime’s control over civil life has been tightened and the torture against BUrma´s 1100 political prisoners is increasing. In the Karen province, 16.000 civilians have been forced to flee into the jungle as a consequence of an intensified military offensive over the last month. many have been killed.

-We miss a clear and explicit politics on Burma from our red-green government, says Sand, NBC´s information officer. -Since taking office last September, the government has kept completely quiet on Burma. We encourage Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg and his red-green government to work actively for the UN Security Council to adopt a resolution on Burma, sand continues.

Over the last 16 years, numerous diplomatic attempts have been made towards the Burmese junta to establish a real democratization process in the country. The scenario is always the same: The junta plays along, the international society´s hopes raise that ´this time, they mean business, so let´s wait and see´. However, the junta always withdraws at the point of having to deliver. On the basis of this, 16 MPs, representing four different centre and right parties, have signed a letter that is being sent today to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan and the members of the Security Council. The letter is signed by MPs from all over the world, who encourage the UN to deal with Nurma in the Security Council and adopt a respolution demanding of Burmese authorities to cooperate with the UN Secretary General on a national process of reconciliation. So, sand asks, -what does Norwegian authorities do about this?

Hina Jilani 2005 Baku 100.jpgUN Statement
The Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar, Paulo Sergio Pinheiro, and the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on the situation of Human Rights Defenders, Hina Jilani, left, issued the following statement today:

Today as the United Nations member states gather for the historic inaugural meeting of the Human Rights Council, we call to mind that today also marks the birthday of one of the world’s most acclaimed human rights defenders, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi. The Nobel Peace Prize Laureate continues under house arrest, having been held in detention for over ten of the past sixteen years for her peaceful advocacy of fundamental democratic freedoms.

Her steadfast commitment to the principles which all member states have pledged to promote and protect, strongly accentuates the responsibility of us all to demonstrate the integrity of our words, employ our individual and collective efforts to re-invigorate and lend our full support to the international system of human rights protection.

If the international community is to give credence to its renewed commitment, it should ensure that such defenders who at great personal cost, spearhead the global drive towards a more equitable and peaceful world, are to be celebrated and supported, not silenced.