Suu Kyi's lawyer asks Myanmar junta for further appeal meeting

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YANGON (AFP) — Myanmar democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi's lawyer has requested another meeting with her to discuss an appeal against her detention, amid repeated international calls for her release, her party's spokesman said Friday.

Kyi Win asked the ruling junta for permission to meet with the Nobel peace prize winner, who has spent most of the past 19 years locked away in her lakeside home in Yangon, the National League for Democracy's Nyan Win said.

"Lawyer U Kyi Win has asked the authorities to meet with Daw Aung San Suu Kyi again to give her receipt of her appeal and to get further instructions for it," Nyan Win told AFP.


"We haven't received any reply yet. But the authorities are likely to allow him to meet her," he said.

The authorities acknowledged receipt of Aung San Suu Kyi's appeal on October 9 but have not yet indicated whether they will accept the case.

Aung San Suu Kyi last met with Kyi Win in September to finalise her appeal.

The 63-year-old rarely meets with anyone except her lawyer and doctor and refused a visit from United Nations envoy Ibrahim Gambari in August, apparently in protest at the lack of progress he was making on political reform in Myanmar.

On Thursday leaders around the world marked the 13th anniversary of Aung San Suu Kyi's house arrest by renewing calls for the government to release her.

A US State Department spokesman urged the "unlawful detention" to end, while the European Parliament joined rights groups in urging Asian and European leaders meeting in China this week to appeal to Myanmar for liberal reforms.

Meanwhile, the United Nations' expert on human rights in Myanmar, Tomas Ojea Quintana, announced a four-point plan of political reforms he is asking the junta to implement before elections due in 2010.

The NLD won a landslide victory in 1990 elections but the junta never allowed it to take office.

Myanmar has been ruled by the military since 1962.