Daw Aung San Suu Kyi Released from Detention in Burma
By Maureen Aung-Thwin
The Open Society Foundations welcome the release of Nobel laureate Daw Aung San Suu Kyi. Although Daw Suu was effectively shut out of recent elections, we call on the Burmese junta to now support genuine steps to political reform by entering into a real dialogue with Daw Suu and ethnic leaders. As Aung San Suu Kyi has said, "I will continue to work for national reconciliation among the people, among all of us. There is no one that I cannot work or talk with; if there is a will to work together, it can be done. If there is a will to talk to one another, it can be done. I will take this path.”
We hope that her release will be a small step towards national reconciliation. Aung San Suu Kyi has been under detention by Burma's junta for 15 of the past 21 years. On November 14, she made her first public statements in seven years.
Below are photographs from Open Society grantee Mizzima News, taken during Daw Suu's first few hours of release as well as excerpts from her public address and press conference at the National League for Democracy’s headquarters in Rangoon.
Until June 2017, Maureen Aung-Thwin was special advisor to the Burma Program at the Open Society Foundations.