There is a pressing need for the Myanmar people and the international community to build up pressure on the Myanmar military junta to do the right thing and free Aung San Suu Kyi.

The current scenario surrounding Myanmar’s democracy icon echoes the injustice that surrounded another jailed world leader a few decades ago – the incarceration of South African leader Nelson Mandela. Such was the chorus of international dismay over apartheid and Mandela’s confinement that many leading figures including pop stars called for his release. Songs were sung to Free Nelson Mandela. On 11 February 1990 Nelson Mandela, hand-in-hand with his wife, walked free from the South African prison. And, as they say, the rest is history.

As the Myanmar Supreme Court gears up to handle an appeal made by Aung San Suu Kyi’s lawyers, pressure should be brought to bear to free Myanmar’s democracy icon whose only crime was to stand in a legitimate democratic election in 2020 with the goal to put in place the stepping stones to lift the country out of the nightmare it has been suffering for decades. Few, if any, take seriously the various charges she was sentenced for that total 33 years, a witch-hunt if ever there was one.

The Myanmar junta have it in their power to do the right thing and free Aung San Suu Kyi. Periodically, the junta frees prisoners in amnesties, including hardened criminals, and so the fact that The Lady continues to languish in a building in a Naypyidaw prison all alone out of sight is clearly a travesty of justice.

It is a fact of history that every so often ordinary people are called to public service. Many would argue that The Lady is not ordinary, given she is the daughter of the Burmese independence hero Aung San. But she has had the opportunity on more than one occasion to step back and pursue a quiet life, even when her husband was dying of cancer and she was torn between love, on the one hand, and duty towards her country, on the other.

Myanmar’s military generals should give this careful thought. Is it really true that they are cowards intimidated by a woman, who while not perfect, reflects the face of freedom for Myanmar, the inevitable outcome for a country that has suffered so much over the decades due to the trampling of soldiers ’boots?

How long are Min Aung Hlaing and the generals going to deny the inevitable? Freedom will come to Myanmar eventually.

Why not show courage and let The Lady go? Deep down they know this is the right thing to do.