Junta seeks to flog Suu Kyi

Burma’s Suu Kyi deserves to be flogged: junta

By Southeast Asia correspondent Karen Percy and wires-ABC/Reuters

Burma’s military junta has lashed out at detained pro-democracy leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, calling her a threat to national security.

The country’s government-backed newspapers have reportedly likened the 62-year-old to a naughty child because they say she poses a danger to the state.

Although they do not refer to her by name, Ms Suu Kyi is accused of accepting money from foreign governments and rebel groups.

“Due to the crimes they have committed, they well deserve flogging punishment as in the case of naughty children,” the papers said in Burmese and English-language editorials, thought to reflect the thinking of the junta’s top brass.

The editorials say the Government is behaving like the “parent of the people” and exercising “great patience”.

In 1990, Ms Suu Kyi won general elections, but was never allowed to take office.

She has spent 13 of the past 19 years under house arrest.

More than two weeks ago, the junta extended her detention for another year.

On Tuesday the junta released 15 of her supporters who tried to march to her home on the day her house detention was supposed to end.

As the daughter of independence hero Aung San, Ms Suu Kyi exercises enormous personal political clout in the nation of 57 million.

The newspaper commentaries also sought to explain the specific security law under which Ms Suu Kyi is being held, but they failed to clarify whether the extension of her detention order on May 27 was for six or 12 months.

The papers also cited Singapore, Malaysia and the United States as countries which had laws to “prevent those who pose danger to the state”.

– ABC(Australia)/Reuters