Pinoy activists demand release of Suu Kyi

Filipino activists wearing chains and a giant cake replica trooped to the Myanmar embassy yesterday to demand the release of pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi on her birthday, as she turned 61 under house arrest.

More than a dozen members of the Free Burma Coalition carried placards reading "Free Burma Now" and "Free all political prisoners in Burma."

"We think that calling for Suu Kyi’s release would be the best gift that we can offer on her birthday," Gus Miclat, a spokesman for the coalition, said in a statement protesting the Myanmar government’s recent decision to extend Suu Kyi’s house arrest for another year.

The protesters, two of them with chains around their ankles, were joined by two South Korean activists.

The demonstrators brought a giant cardboard "cake" bearing a picture of Suu Kyi and the number 61. They also attached buntings at the facade of the building housing the embassy as a handful of policemen watched.

"The junta’s decision extending her house arrest can never be acceptable to the international community," Miclat said.

Suu Kyi, the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize laureate and one of the world’s most prominent political prisoners, has spent 10 of the last 17 years in confinement.

Myanmar’s ruling military junta took power in 1988 after crushing massive pro-democracy demonstrations in Myanmar, formerly known as Burma. In 1990, it refused to hand over power when Suu Kyi’s party won a general election by a landslide. — AP