Amnesty campaigners in Northern Ireland: Amnesty: Aung San Suu Kyi trial a 'farce', verdict a 'sick joke'

Call for Aung San Suu Kyi’s immediate release.

Today’s guilty verdict against Daw Aung San Suu Kyi by a court in Burma has been described by Amnesty International campaigners in Northern Ireland as "a travesty".

"Her trial was a farce and this guilty verdict is a sick joke," said Amnesty’s Northern Ireland Programme Director Patrick Corrigan. "From start to finish, the process has been a complete travesty of justice, little more than a kangaroo court, designed to do the regime's bidding."

"Just a couple of weeks ago, thousands of people from Northern Ireland witnessed U2 name Aung San Suu Kyi as an Amnesty International Ambassador of Conscience at their concert in Dublin," said Patrick Corrigan.

"We will not allow this courageous woman to be forgotten about. Amnesty supporters in Northern Ireland and throughout the world will continue to campaign for justice for Suu Kyi and for all the imprisoned people of Burma."

On 11 August a court in Yangon’s Insein prison found Burma’s pro-democracy leader guilty of violating the conditions of her house arrest, after an uninvited man spent two nights there in early May. Under Section 22 of Burma’s State Protection Act of 1975, the court sentenced Daw Aung San Suu Kyi to three years imprisonment, commuted to 18 months under house arrest. This was less than the maximum five years’ imprisonment allowed by law.

"The Burmese authorities will hope that a sentence that is shorter than the maximum will be seen by the international community as an act of leniency. But it is not, and must not be seen as such, especially by ASEAN or the UN. Daw Aung San Suu Kyi has been detained for over 13 of the past 20 years but should never have been arrested in the first place. The only issue here is her immediate and unconditional release," said Irene Khan, Amnesty’s Secretary General.

Amnesty International also noted that Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, a prisoner of conscience, is one of more than 2,150 political prisoners in Burma.

Call for Aung San Suu Kyi’s immediate release. /p>