Aung San Suu Kyi to be set free — finally

LONDON - Pro-democracy leader, Nobel Laureate and India-educated Aung San Suu Kyi is to be set free, most probably Saturday, after Myanmar’s military junta Friday signed an order authorising her release.

BBC quoted reports from Myanmar as saying that the military had signed the release order. The development saw a sudden increase in police activity outside her home in Yangon.

The charismatic opposition leader has been detained for 15 of the past 21 years. Her last spell of 18-month house arrest expires Saturday.

There was no word from her family. But it is widely believed that Suu Kyi may not accept a conditional release if it excludes her from political activity.

In July 2009, a court sentenced Suu Kyi to 18 months for breaking the conditions of her house arrest by allowing an American citizen to stay in her house after he swam across a lake uninvited.

Suu Kyi is the daughter of Myanmar’s independence hero, General Aung San.

She has studied in New Delhi’s Lady Shri Ram College and in Oxford University. She was a student of Political Science in New Delhi from where she passed out in 1964.

In 1989, she was first placed under house arrest after the military declared martial law.

Two years later, she won the Nobel Peace Prize, becoming an international celebrity.

In 1995, she was released from house arrest but her movements were restricted. Since 2000, she has been under near continuous period of house arrest.

Suu Kyi’s supporters have been congregating at the headquarters of her National League for Democracy (NLD) anticipating her release.

“There is no law to hold her for another day. Her detention period expires Saturday and she will be released,” her lawyer Nyan Win was quoted as saying. “They should release her for the country.”

Myanmar held its first election in two decades Sunday.