After a lull of several months, students in Burma's northern Kachin State have become active yet again against the Burmese ruling junta. They have demanded the immediate release of democracy icon Daw Aung San Suu Kyi from Insein Prison. The students pasted 50 hand-written posters in Myitkyina, the capital of Kachin State this morning, said student activists.
The student activist leader Shadang Naw Awng, who is behind this morning's poster movement said, the A-4 sized papers had two slogans ---"Free Aung San Suu Kyi immediately" and "Against 2010 elections". The posters were put up in six major quarters in Myitkyina--- Du Kahtawng, Yan Gyi Aung, Yuzana, Myothit, Aung Nan and Ayeyar.
Shadang Naw Awng told KNG, "We mainly pasted the posters on government buildings at road junctions and corners, on electric poles and on the walls in front of some government buildings. We also put up posters on the wall in front of the Office of the Director of Township Education in Aung Nan quarter."
An eyewitness said the town’s military authorities did not remove the posters till noon.
The poster movement was organized by All Kachin Students' Union (AKSU), the underground student organization in Kachin State which was formed just before the September 2007 Saffron Revolution.
Aung San Suu Kyi, general secretary of the National League for Democracy (NLD) and winner of the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize was transferred to Insein Prison in Rangoon on May 14 from her home where she had been under house-arrest.
The junta started a closed-door trial of Mrs. Suu Kyi on Monday in the Insein Prison. She has been charged for violating the terms of her house arrest and could face a prison sentence of up to five years, her lawyers have said.
She has been charged in connection with an American John William Yettaw’s arrest last week for allegedly swimming across Innya Lake and entering Suu Kyi's home and staying there for two days.
The 63-year-old pro-democracy leader has been detained for more than 13 of the past 19 years. Her latest house arrest is officially due to end on May 27 after six years.
Meanwhile, the US, EU and ASEAN expressed deep concern over Suu Kyi's arrest but China said on Tuesday it would not interfere in the internal affairs of its neighbour.
On the flip side, the junta is pressurizing all ethnic ceasefire groups in the country to transform to battalions of border security forces under the junta's control before the general elections next year.
