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Detention of Suu Kyi illegal: UN
Irrawaddy - March 24, 2009
Lalit K. Jha, Washington – The house arrest of Burmese democratic icon Aung San Suu Kyi is illegal and against the domestic law of Burma, a UN body has ruled.
The Washington-based Freedom House said Tuesday the ruling in this regard was given by the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention. A statement urged the immediate release of Suu Kyi.
The judgment from the international tribunal declared unequivocally that the ongoing detention of Suu Kyi is illegal and in violation of both Burmese and international law, Freedom House said in a statement.
"The Working Group considers that Ms Aung San Suu Kyi's continued placement under house arrest is arbitrary and in violation of article 9 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights," said the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention in its statement, a copy of which was released by Freedom Now.
"The Working Group... declare[s] Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi's placement under house arrest [is] arbitrary, being in contravention of Articles 9, 10, and 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights... and even domestic law... which itself contradicts the basic principles and norms of modern international law... Consequent upon this Opinion, the Working Group requests the Government to immediately release, without any condition, Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi from her continued placement under house arrest," it said.
The UN Working Group urged the Burmese military government to take practical steps to remedy the situation in order to bring it into conformity with the standards of International Human Rights Law and to study the possibility of an early accession to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and to other core international human rights treaties.
The Working Group on Arbitrary Detention is an independent and impartial body of the Human Rights Council. It consists of experts from Chile, Pakistan, Russian Federation, Senegal and Spain.
While in its previous four opinions related to Suu Kyi the Working Group had termed her house arrest in violation of international law, but this is for the first time it has declared her detention to also be a violation of domestic Burmese law. Suu Kyi has spent more than 13 of the last 19 years under house arrest.
"It is deeply unfortunate that the Burmese junta continues to flagrantly violate its own and international law," said Jared Genser, president of Freedom Now, and a lead attorney for Suu Kyi. "Previously, the UN Security Council, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, Asean, the European Union, and the United States have all called for Suu Kyi's release. The only question remaining is how long will Burma's bold-face defiance of the international community be tolerated?" he said.
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