AJC's Jacob Blaustein Institute Welcomes Burma's Release of Aung Sang Suu Kyi

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Nov 13, 2010, 08:50 ET

NEW YORK, Nov. 13, 2010 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- AJC's Jacob Blaustein Institute (JBI) for the Advancement of Human Rights welcomed today's release from house arrest of Burmese Nobel Peace Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi. JBI also called for a UN investigation into serious human rights abuses committed by the Burmese regime.

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"Ms. Suu Kyi's courageous stance in favor of freedom, fairness and honest democratic elections has been an inspiration to all of us," said Robert Goodkind, chair of AJC's Jacob Blaustein Institute. "Her release is a welcome development in a country marked too long and too deeply by widespread, systematic human rights abuses."

While cheering her release, AJC's JBI also expressed concern over continuing repression in Burma.

Other long-serving prisoners of conscience, including Buddhist monk U Gambira, who led peaceful demonstrations in 2007; Labor Activist Su Su Nway, who was detained after raising a banner appealing for help from a visiting UN envoy; and an estimated 2,100 other prisoners of conscience, should be released, said Goodkind.

"We urge the international community to press for ending impunity and restoring human rights and democracy in Burma," said Goodkind. He called on the UN to implement the recommendation of UN Special Rapporteur Tomas Ojea Quintana to create a Commission of Inquiry on Burma to investigate crimes against humanity and other human rights abuses.

According to the 2010 report of the bipartisan U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, Burma's government "severely restricts religious practice, monitors the activity of all religious organizations, and perpetrates violence against religious leaders and communities, particularly in ethnic minority areas."

In her 1990 Freedom From Fear speech, which later became a book, Suu Kyi said, "Fear of losing power corrupts those who wield it." But even under the "most crushing state machinery, courage rises up again and again. For fear is not the natural state of man."

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SOURCE American Jewish Committee