(quote)

In the 1990 general election, Suu Kyi earned the right to be Prime Minister in a 392-out-of-489-seats landslide victory as leader of the winning National League for Democracy party, but her detention has prevented her from assuming that role.

Burmese Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi spent her 64th birthday in prison Friday, as demands for her freedom erupted across the internet and at rallies worldwide. Suu Kyi has spent more than 13 of the last 19 years in detention, mostly under house arrest. Her party won Myanmar's last elections in 1990 but the junta rejected her victory. After an uninvited American swam to her tightly guarded lakeside home last month, she was arrested and is now on trial for violating the terms of her house arrest.

Celebrities Brad Pitt, Julia Roberts, Paul McCartney, Madonna and David Beckham joined Nobel laureates and world leaders in calling on the military junta in Burma, also known as Myanmar, to release Suu Kyi, who has now spent 14 birthdays in detention. Messages on a new website have been signed by dozens of dignitaries and celebrities including George Clooney, Sarah Jessica Parker, Robert De Niro, Nicole Kidman, director Steven Spielberg and fellow Nobel Peace Prize winners Elie Wiesel and Desmond Tutu. "She really appreciates the efforts and said she was sorry she wasn't able to thank everyone individually," Nyan Win said. At a ceremony outside Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy party's headquarters in Rangoon, supporters released 64 sparrows, 10 doves and coloured balloons into the sky.

Suu Kyi won the Rafto Prize and the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought in 1990 and the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991. In 1992 she was awarded the Jawaharlal Nehru peace prize by the Government of India for her peaceful and non-violent struggle under a military dictatorship. She is currently under detention, with the Burmese junta repeatedly extending her detention. In the 1990 general election, Suu Kyi earned the right to be Prime Minister, as leader of the winning National League for Democracy party, but her detention by the military junta prevented her from assuming that role. She had won the national election by landslide - 392 out of 489 seats.

Her father, General Aung San, who founded the modern Burmese army and negotiated Burma's independence from the United Kingdom in 1947, is considered to be the father of modern-day Burma; he was assassinated by his rivals in the same year.

(unquote)

Photos courtesy of Toshifumi Kitamura / AFP / Getty Images, Free Burma, AP Photo / Aye Aye Win, Aung Hla Tun / Reuters, Khin Maung Win / AP, and Getty Images

Original Source: CBC.ca, ABC News, Telegraph, Wikipedia