Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi celebrated her 61st birthday at her Yangon home in Burma on 19 June. Unlike most birthdays, hers was celebrated under house arrest, and on 27 May she was informed that the junta had extended her detention term for another year. The English PEN Writers in Prison Committee declared her its Prisoner of the Month for July 2006.

Suu Kyi has spent the last 17 years in and out of house arrest. As leader of the National League for Democracy and a prominent writer, she was and still is a main target for the military. She was most recently arrested in 2003 when her convoy was attacked and approximately 100 of her supporters were killed. by Carolyn Garza from a PEN Writers in Prison Committee report 

‘In Good Health’
Suu Kyi’s house arrest term is now set to end in May of 2007. It was originally set to end in 2005. She is held under the 1975 State Protection Act, which allows the government to imprison anyone for up to five years without trial. She is in good health but wishes to have more regular and scheduled visits from her doctors, said UN Under Secretary General Ibrahim Gambari. In June 2006 Suu Kyi was hospitalised for fatigue. For two years Suu Kyi was denied foreign visitors, and Gambari was among the UN envoy that came to Burma for one of her first visits.
While under house arrest, she has continued her work, giving recorded speeches and writing pieces for outside organizations. Her publications include Letters from Burma, Freedom from Fear, and various essays. UN Secretary General Kofi Annan has directly requested Senior General Than Shwe, Burma’s current leader, to release Suu Kyi since her detention was “arbitrary.” His requests, however, did not enact any change in her situation. The United States has issued sanctions against Burma but they have been largely ineffective.

Political Family
Suu Kyi, the daughter of General Aung San and diplomat Daw Khin Kyi, returned to Burma in 1988 to lead a growing revolutionary movement that eventually became a political party. General Aung San had been a very prominent leader in the transition from British rule to independence, which occurred in 1947. He was also assassinated by opposition supporters that year. In 1962, a coup d’ état by General Ne Win brought about stringent reforms for nearly 26 years. Another power shift in 1988 ousted General Ne Win and the new regime declared martial law in 1989.
The National League for Democracy party won a decisive majority of the votes in the 1990 elections that would have made Suu Kyi the prime minister of Burma, but the government refused to transfer power and declared the elections void. Instead, it dramatically increased the repression of the party. Suu Kyi had already been under house arrest for the first out of six years by election time. Only recently has the government come out and spoken of a willingness to form a coalition with Suu Kyi’s party.

Defiant campaigner
She was a heavy pro-democracy campaigner after her release from house arrest, touring the country and giving pro-democracy speeches. She at one time was also banned from public appearances but defied the ban to continue campaigning for the political party’s ideals. Although she won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991, she was under house arrest at the time and her two sons had to accept the award on her behalf. Her husband died of cancer in 1999, years after their last visit in 1995. He was repeatedly denied a visa to visit her in Burma before his death.