People around Myanmar will be taking time out to mark 19 June 2022, the 77th birthday of Myanmar’s democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi.
The Nobel Prize laureate and chairperson of the National League for Democracy (NLD) will be spending her 77th birthday in detention.
Aung San Suu Kyi was arrested on 1 February 2021, the day of the Myanmar military coup, and it remains unclear where she is being held.
She has spent a sizeable proportion of her life in detention.
Presently, she is sentenced to 11 years in prison for six charges and facing trials for the remaining 13 charges. Since a year after the coup, the military junta has not disclosed where Aung San Suu Kyi has been detained and they cut her off from the outside world. Only on the days of her trials, the lawyer is allowed to talk with her for about half an hour, according to sources close to the court.
Major General Zaw Min Tun, spokesperson of the military junta, recently told Radio Free Asia that Aung San Suu Kyi was being detained at a good place with full health care service.
During her previous times under house arrest she was unable to freely celebrate her birthday.
During one of her trials on 13 June this month, Aung San Suu Kyi said she offered prayers for the citizens and asked for everyone to help one another, according to court sources.
She joined Myanmar’s politics in the 1988 pro-democracy movement. Since then, she has been largely supported by the civilians. Afterwards, she was detained the first time in 1989–1995, the second time in 2000–2002, and the third time in 2003–2010.
After she was released from house arrest in 2010, her birthday on 19 June was celebrated by NLD members and people across the country by planting trees, donating blood and other positive acts. In some years, she held her birthday celebration at the parliament in Nay Pyi Taw.
Last year, on her birthday, the first time after this current coup, people across Myanmar staged a flower-protest for the release of all political prisoners including Aung San Suu Kyi. On that day, 19 June last year, the sellers reduced the prices of the flowers to help the people celebrate Suu Kyi’s birthday.
This year, activists have called on people to mark her birthday by highlighting her well-known slogan “Freedom From Fear”.
