NEWSLINKS US EDITION SOUTH ASIA COLUMNISTS DIARY SPECIALS INTERVIEWS CAPITAL BUZZ REDIFF POLL DEAR REDIFF THE STATES ELECTIONS ARCHIVES SEARCH REDIFF
Myanmar's pro-democracy leader and Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi was on Monday morning freed after 19 months of house arrest in Yangon.
Officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, were quoted as saying that the restrictions on Suu Kyi were lifted and she was at liberty to carry out all activities.
Educated in Burma, India and England, Suu Kyi, 56, had been confined to her lakeside villa since September 2000.
She has been in and out of house arrest, clamped by the junta ever since she plunged into active pro-democracy politics.
The junta was under pressure from Western nations who had demanded Suu Kyi's unconditional release.
"We have released nearly 600 detainees in recent months and shall continue to release those who will cause no harm to the community nor threaten the existing peace, stability and unity of the nation," an official statement said.
Her father Aung San was a prominent independence leader of the 1940s and mother an ambassador to India. Suu Kyi won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991.
The military has been ruling Myanmar for 40 years. It crushed a 1988 pro-democracy movement led by Suu Kyi and put her under house arrest in 1989.
Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy won the general election a year later, but the military never handed her power.
Suu Kyi was released in 1995 but was banned from travelling outside Yangon. She was again put under house arrest in September 2000.
The statement added: "We shall recommit ourselves to allowing all our citizens to participate freely in the life of our political process, while giving priority to national unity, peace and stability of the country as well as the region."
Also Read : Seven sites on the Nobel Laureate, Aung San Suu Kyi.
Tell us what you think of this report
