Suu Kyi detention breaks Myanmar law - UN body

http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSN23295737

Myanmar law

* U.N. Secretary-General Ban urged to visit country

WASHINGTON, March 23 (Reuters) - A United Nations body has ruled the detention of Myanmar democracy activist Aung San Suu Kyi is illegal under the domestic laws of her own country, the former Burma, her lawyer said on Monday.

It was the first time the U.N. Working Group on Arbitrary Detention found that the confinement of Suu Kyi, who has spent more than 13 of the last 19 years under house arrest, illegal under Myanmar law, said her lead attorney, Jared Genser.

"The Working Group requests the government to immediately release, without any condition, Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi from her continued placement under house arrest," said the ruling, issued in November but made public only this week.

The latest decision was the fifth time since 1992 that Suu Kyi's detention was declared arbitrary and illegal under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, said Genser, president of Freedom Now, an advocacy group for political prisoners.



Genser said it was unlikely the military junta that has ruled Myanmar since 1962 and has refused to recognize a 1990 landslide election victory of the Suu Kyi's opposition National League for Democracy would release her.

"At the same time, there has been increasing pressure being placed not only on the junta from the international community but also on the U.N. to deliver," he told Reuters.

"I would call on U.N. Secretary-General (Ban Ki-moon) to go to Burma and directly engage with the junta."

It is not clear whether Ban has plans to visit the Southeast Asian country.

Last week, Tomas Ojea Quintana, U.N. special rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar, called on the junta to release more than 2,100 political prisoners. (Reporting by Paul Eckert; Editing by John O'Callaghan)