Dear PeaceJammers and Friends:
We urgently need your help to demand the immediate release of Nobel Peace Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi!
On Thursday, April 14 Aung San Suu Kyi was arrested and taken from her home, where she has been under house arrest for 13 of the past 19 years, to the notoriously brutal Insein Prison. Ms. Suu Kyi was charged with violating the terms of her house arrest following a bizarre incident in which an uninvited American man swam across a lake to her home last week.
The military junta that controls Burma is using this incident to try to continue the illegal detention of Aung San Suu Kyi, whose current term house arrest is set to end on May 27th, 2009 and as a way to prevent her from influencing 2010 elections. In the words of U.K. Prime Minister Gordon Brown: “The Burmese regime is clearly intent on finding any pretext, no matter how tenuous, to extend her unlawful detention. The real injustice, the real illegality, is that she is still detained in the first place.”
Her trial is scheduled for May 18th, and if she is convicted she faces up to five years in a prison which is known internationally for its brutal treatment of political prisoners! Aung San Suu Kyi has been reported to be in poor health recently. In her fragile state of health, a prison sentence would be the same as a death sentence for Aung San Suu Kyi.
Please join me in demanding the immediate and unconditional release of Nobel Peace Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi today!
Here’s how you can help:
- Write a letter to the Secreatary Genteral of the United Nations, Ban Ki-Moon and or the Secretary General of ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations). Attached there are two letters you can use as templates for you letter - but remember that personalized letters are the most powerful!
- For effective letter writing tips visit the IBCL website: http://www.icbl.org/action/sample_letter
-Email your letters to the Secreatary General of ASEAN at termsak@aseansec.org and the Secretary General of the United Nations, Ban Ki-moon at sg@un.org
-Please share Aung San Suu Kyi’s story with your friends, your family, your co-workers, your teachers, your students, and anyone else you know! Ask them to write letters, too!
In the words of Aung San Suu Kyi “Please use your liberty to promote ours.”
Each letter really can make a difference! It was letter writing that freed Nelson Mandela and Adolfo Perez Esquivel, now let’s save Aung San Suu Kyi!
Peace and Action,
The PeaceJam Team
Letter Templates:
http://www.box.net/shared/7ahqs67ncn
More information on Aung San Suu Kyi’s imprisonment and trial:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8054643.stm
http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/news/2009/05/090518_burma_aung_san_suu_kyi_dm.shtml
http://i4.democracynow.org/2009/5/18/burma_vj_reporting_from_a_closed
Constantly updated news:
http://news.google.com/news?pz=1&ned=us&hl=en&q=Aung+San+Suu+Kyi
