Factfile: Aung San Suu Kyi

Myanmar’s military government has extended opposition leader and Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi’s house arrest by another year, a Home Ministry source said.

The opposition leader was first placed under arrest in 1989

Suu Kyi, 60, has spent about 10 of the last 15 years either in prison or under house arrest.

 

Following are some key dates and events:

 

20 July 1989 – Suu Kyi, who returned from England the previous year, is placed under house arrest for “endangering the state”.

 

Many other senior members of her National League for Democracy (NLD) party are also rounded up.

 

27 May 1990 – NLD wins 392 out of 485 parliamentary seats in the first multi-party general election since 1960. The junta decides to ignore the results.

 

14 October 1991 – Suu Kyi awarded Nobel Peace Prize while still under house arrest.

 

10 July 1995 – Suu Kyi released from house arrest.

 

27 March 1999 – Suu Kyi’s husband, Oxford academic Michael Aris, dies of cancer in a British hospital. She decides not to go to his funeral, fearing she will be barred from re-entry to Myanmar.

 

21 September 2000 – Suu Kyi tries to leave Yangon by rail to Mandalay, but is prevented from boarding and taken home.

 

Diplomatic access is barred and her telephone line cut as her second period of isolation begins.

 

6 May 2002 – Suu Kyi is released after 19 months of house arrest and told she can travel freely around the country.

 

30 May 2003 – Suu Kyi and other NLD leaders are placed in “protective custody” after clashes between pro-government demonstrators and her supporters. After a short spell in Yangon‘s notorious Insein prison, she is returned to house arrest.

Source: Reuters