Suu Kyi's party launches signature campaign
Myanmar's pro-democracy party launched a name-signing campaign calling for the release of political prisoners, including leader Aung San Suu Kyi, on the 62nd anniversary of Union Day yesterday.
Senior members of the National League for Democracy party signed a whiteboard at the party's headquarters in Yangon calling for the release of Nobel Peace laureate Suu Kyi and party vice-chairman Tin Oo.
The ceremony was completed under the watchful gaze of plain clothes police and militia groups loyal to Myanmar's ruling military junta.
"We will continue signing as it is in accordance with the law. We will show that we have the people's support, not only to them (the authorities) but also to the international community," NLD spokesman Nyan Win told reporters.
Some 250 people, including party members, politicians and diplomats attended an earlier ceremony at the headquarters to mark Myanmar's 62nd Union Day.
Union Day marks the signing of an agreement in 1947 in which various ethnic communities within what was then known as Burma unanimously called for independence from Britain.
"Union Spirit lies at the centre of ensuring perpetuation of the sovereignty," said a Union Day message from junta leader Senior General Than Shwe, carried in the New Light of Myanmar newspaper
"It is, therefore, mandatory for us to firmly cultivate a strong sense of Union Spirit wherever we live in the Union."
The NLD meanwhile reiterated its calls for the regime to recognise the result of elections in 1990, when the NLD won a landslide victory that the junta refused to recognise.
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