FREEDOM NOW
1750 K Street, NW  Suite 350  Washington, D.C. 20006  +1 202 223-3733  www.freedom-now.org
Honorary Co–Chairs
The Honorable
Václav Havel
The Most Reverend
Desmond M. Tutu
Board of Directors
President
Jared Genser
Chair
Jeremy Zucker
Treasurer
Daniel Silverberg
Glenn Kaminsky
Micheline Mendelsohn
Board of Advisors
Prof. Karima Bennoune
Rutgers University
School of Law (Newark)
Prof. Jerome A. Cohen
New York University
Law School
Irwin Cotler MP
Parliament of Canada
Harry C. McPherson
DLA Piper US LLP
Nuala Mole
AIRE Centre
Prof. A.W. Brian Simpson
Michigan Law School
Prof. Christopher
McCrudden
Oxford University
The Honorable
Patricia M. Wald
Executive Director
Maran Turner
Our mission is to free prisoners of conscience through focused legal, political, and public relations advocacy efforts.
Contact: Jared Genser
+1 202.320.4135
jgenser@freedom-now.org
MEDIA ADVISORY
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Countdown to Freedom:
Aung San Suu Kyi Must Be Released On November 13, 2010
Washington, D.C. –Burma’s Aung San Suu Kyi, General Secretary of the
National League for Democracy and the world’s only imprisoned Nobel Peace
Prize Laureate, should be released immediately and unconditionally from her
illegal house arrest; however, she must, under Burmese law, be released on
November 13, 2010. This release will occur after the Burmese junta’s
fraudulent elections, scheduled for November 7, 2010. This legal assessment is
consistent with the January 2010 announcement by thenBurmese Minister for
Home Affairs Major-General Maung Oo that Suu Kyi “will be released this
November.”
Suu Kyi has spent nearly 15 of the past 21 years in illegal detention. Her most
recent series of illegal detentions began on May 30, 2003, when the junta
placed Suu Kyi in “protective custody” after an assassination attempt by thugs
associated with the junta-backed Union Solidarity Development Association.
The attack also left an estimated 70 of her supporters dead. Suu Kyi’s
detention was executed under Burma’s draconian State Protection Law. The
United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention has declared Suu Kyi’s
detentions since 2003 to be arbitrary and in violation of international law on
four separate occasions, including, most recently, in Opinion 12/2010 issued
on June 16, 2010.
The State Protection Law under which Suu Kyi was held is unconstitutional
under Burmese law as it was adopted under Article 167 of its 1974
constitution. The junta annulled the 1974 constitution when it took power in
1988 and it was later replaced by the 2008 constitution. Further, even under its
own terms, the law was illegally applied to Suu Kyi in two key respects. First,
the State Protection Law does not permit protective custody but rather, permits
only the detention of an individual who might perform “any act endangering
the sovereignty and security of the state or public peace and tranquility.”
Second, the State Protection Law allows for a maximum of five years of
detention without charge or trial, renewable in one-year increments. Suu Kyi,
therefore, even under the junta’s illegal application of an illegal law, should
have been released on May 30, 2008, five years after her initial detention. The
junta, however, claimed it had the right to detain Suu Kyi under the State
Protection Law for six years.
On August 11, 2009, almost three months after she was due to be freed from her illegal house
arrest of six years, Suu Kyi was sentenced to three years in prison, which was then commuted to
18 months of house arrest under Section 401(5) of the Criminal Procedure Code. According to
the junta, this extension was justified by Suu Kyi’s alleged violation of the terms of her house
arrest when American John Yettaw swam onto her property uninvited.

This latest illegal 18-month extension of Suu Kyi’s house arrest ends on November 13, 2010.
Under Burmese law, the term must be counted as beginning when she was transferred to Insein
prison on May 14, 2009, and detained in prison under the new charge of violating the terms of
her house arrest.

The junta cannot legally renew or extend Suu Kyi’s house arrest—not only has she served one
year more than the maximum five years permitted under the now unconstitutional State
Protection Law, but the junta issued the 18-month term of house arrest for violating the law
under a provision which is neither renewable nor extendable.

Unfortunately, if the junta were to not follow through with her release, it would not be the first
time it falsely claimed Suu Kyi would be released to alleviate the international pressure
surrounding her illegal detention. In 2003-2004, then-Burmese Foreign Minister Win Aung
repeatedly and publicly stated that Suu Kyi would be released. Yet, she remains under house
arrest today. The international community must therefore be vigilant and ensure that the junta
meets it commitment to release Aung San Suu Kyi.

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Our mission is to free prisoners of conscience through focused legal, political, and public relations advocacy efforts.