FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
PRESS RELEASE
AHRC-PL-078-2006

BURMA: Su Su Nwe awarded international rights prize

(Hong Kong, September 1, 2006) Burmese human rights defender Ma Su Su Nwe was on Thursday awarded an international human rights prize for her village-based struggle against abuse and impunity in her country. 

The 2006 John Humphrey Freedom Award was awarded to Su Su Nwe for "her inspiring individual efforts" to confront local authorities over forced labour in Burma, for which she was jailed in October 2005.

She was released in June after intense international pressure, including from the International Labour Organisation, which has an office in Rangoon.

"Su Su Nwe is a very worthy recipient of this important award, and we applaud the jury for its decision," Basil Fernando, executive director of the Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC), said on Friday. 

"She has been an inspiration to people throughout Burma, showing that any ordinary person can fight the stupid laws and institutions there that attempt to dominate their lives," Fernando said.

"No doubt the giving of this award will strengthen the movement for human rights and democracy in her country, which is going on every day in thousands of small ways through people like Su Su Nwe," he said.

Forced labour was made illegal in Burma in 1999, but complainants are routinely harassed and sometimes jailed by the authorities there.

The AHRC has frequently pointed out that complaints of any sort in Burma are treated as a threat to the state.

The Hong Kong-based regional rights group has described Burma's courts as an "injustice system".

In January it launched a bilingual webpage on Ma Su Su Nwe: www.ahrchk.net/susunwe.

The John Humphrey Freedom Award is given annually by a Montreal-based group, Rights & Democracy, in honour of John Peters Humphrey, who prepared the first draft of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Su Su Nwe is the first ever recipient of the award from Southeast Asia.

Previous winners have been from West Papua, Rwanda, Colombia, Peru, Afghanistan, Nigeria and Kenya. 

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About AHRC: The Asian Human Rights Commission is a regional non-governmental organisation monitoring and lobbying human rights issues in Asia. The Hong Kong-based group was founded in 1984.