Mizzima News

Chiang Mai - Eleven award winners of European Union's Sakharov Prize on Tuesday called on the European authorities to double their efforts to secure the release of fellow Sakharov prize winner Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and other political prisoners in Burma.

An informal network of 11 Sakharov prize winners on Tuesday appealed to the European Union to pressurise the Burmese military government to release Aung San Suu Kyi, who has spent more than 12 of the past 19 years in detention.

Olivier Basille of the Reporters Without Borders (RSF) who represented the informal network, said, "We hope we can urge the Burmese military government to free Aung San Su Kyi and other political prisoners in Burma, and also urge the European Union to give more effort."

The European Union in 1990 awarded the Sakhrov prize to Burma's detained pro-democracy leader Daw Aung San Su Kyi for her unwavering commitment to usher in democracy and human rights to Burma, a country ruled by military dictators since 1962.

"It is necessary to do something for her [Aung San Su Kyi] as she is a Sakharov prize winner and also for all other political prisoners including Win Tin, a journalist, to the best of our ability," Basille added.

Basille, whose organisation RSF is one of the award winners that signed the appeal, said the appeal is the first step to urge the EU to do more for the release of Aung San Suu Kyi.

"From this we hope we can put more pressure on the Burmese military government to release her and the others," said Basille.

Meanwhile, detained Burmese Nobel Peace Laureate has reportedly re-accepted fresh food supplies on Monday after having refused supplies for nearly a month as part of a protest against the government to grant her demands.

Her party – the National League for Democracy – on Tuesday said, the regime had partially granted Aung San Suu Kyi demands including receiving letters from family members, foreign magazines, to allow monthly visits by her family doctor and to ease restrictions on the movement of her aides – Khin Khin Win and her Daughter Win Pa Pa.

Aung San Suu Kyi led the NLD in the 1990 parliamentary elections and posted a landslide victory but was denied power by the military regime, which said it is implementing democratic transition through its seven-step roadmap.

The Sakharov Prize is awarded by the European Parliament every year since 1988 to honour individuals or organizations who have spent their lives to defend human rights and freedom and to fight for oppression and injustice.

The award is named after the soviet scientist and dissident Andrie Sakharov. The award ceremony is annually held around December 10, the day on which the United Nations General Assembly ratified the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, and is celebrated as Human Rights Day.