Pro-Aung San Suu Kyi protest held outside Myanmar embassy to Thailand

May 18, 2009, 5:28 GMT

   Bangkok - Dozens of Thai and Myanmar pro-democracy activists gathered outside the Myanmar embassy to Thailand Monday to protest Myanmar's military junta putting opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi on trial.

   About 50 members of the group Peace for Burma, which is Myanmar's former name, waved banners outside the embassy in Bangkok and shouted, 'Free Aung San Suu Kyi,' who was to go on trial Monday at Yangon's Insein Prison for breaking the terms of her house detention.

   The protestors called on Thailand and the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN), of which both countries are members, to join the international community in condemning Myanmar's junta for its latest persecution of Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate who has spent 13 of the past 19 years under house arrest in her family home in Yangon.

   'We demand that the Thai government take the lead in ASEAN and work with the international community to pressurize the SPDC to release Aung San Suu Kyi immediately,' Peace for Burma spokesman Thet Khaing said, referring to the State Peace and Development Council, as the junta calls itself.

   Suu Kyi, 63, leader of the National League for Democracy (NLD) opposition party, faces another three to five years in custody if found guilty of abetting an unauthorized visit to her home-cum-prison by US national John William Yettaw.

   Yettaw reportedly swam to Suu Kyi's family compound on Inya Lake on May 3, staying there until May 6 when he was arrested swimming away from her house.

   Critics of the regime accused it of exploiting Yettaw's bizarre feat to keep detaining Suu Kyi while it prepares for a general election next year.

   The NLD won the 1990 general election but has been blocked from assuming power for the past 19 years.