YANGON, Myanmar - Detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi was expected to stop shunning food deliveries after the junta approved several requests, including the right to receive regular mail deliveries and certain foreign news publications, her lawyer said Friday.
The apparent concessions came amid growing concerns that Suu Kyi was on a hunger strike to protest her ongoing detention. The 63-year-old Nobel Peace Prize winner has refused daily food delivered to her home for over three weeks.
"She will most probably accept her food deliveries as some of the conditions she had asked for were smoothed out," her lawyer, Kyi Win, told The Associated Press.
The junta made no immediate comment.
Among the conditions were Suu Kyi's request to be allowed regular mail deliveries from her two sons, who live in Britain, and other family members, Kyi Win said. Until now, delivery was spotty with some mail permitted and some blocked, he said.
Suu Kyi was also granted permission to read foreign publications, "including Time, Newsweek, etc.," her lawyer said.
He did not give details about how long Suu Kyi has been denied access to foreign news publications.
Suu Kyi has been held in detention by Myanmar's notoriously xenophobic ruling junta for 13 of the past 19 years, mostly under house arrest. She relies on food delivered by her opposition National League for Democracy for sustenance.
She lives in a lakeside home in Yangon, Myanmar's biggest city, with two female companions who help take care of the house.
Suu Kyi had demanded greater freedom of movement for the two women, who were previously barred from leaving the home but will now be allowed out during the daytime, the lawyer said.
She will also be allowed monthly medical checkups by her personal physician, which the junta had previously promised her but then blocked.
Myanmar, also known as Burma, has been in a political deadlock since 1990, when Suu Kyi's party overwhelmingly won general elections but was not allowed to take power by the military
Friday, September 12, 2008
Myanmar's junta grants Suu Kyi new rights
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