yangon • Three top leaders of Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD) met yesterday with the new UN human rights envoy for Myanmar at a Yangon hotel, a party spokesman said.
The officials met briefly with UN special rapporteur Tomas Ojea Quintana, telling him that they believe the regime's detention of the Nobel Peace Prize winner is a violation of human rights, said party spokesman Nyan Win.
Aung San Suu Kyi was first arrested in July 1989, and has been allowed only a few brief years of freedom since.
After the regime in May extended her house arrest by another year, the NLD wrote to the junta appealing her detention, but they have received no reply, Nyan Win said.
"We assume that the lack of a reply is a rejection. They are rejecting her right to appeal. This is a violation of human rights," he said.
NLD leaders also told Quintana about the arrest of party members during anti-government protests led by Buddhist monks last September, as well as the beating of Aung San Suu Kyi's supporters outside party headquarters in June, Nyan Win added.
The regime has given no indication of whether it will allow Quintana to meet Aung San Suu Kyi.
Quintana spoke with the NLD leaders shortly before flying to the regime's remote capital of Naypyidaw, where he was expected to meet with senior military officials.
Myanmar officials would not say whether he would see junta leader Than Shwe.
The envoy arrived on his first mission to Myanmar on Sunday. He has met with prominent political prisoners and relief experts working to deliver aid to victims of Cyclone Nargis, which left 138,000 dead or missing after it hit in May.
He is expected to wrap up his mission today.
On Friday, activists in Myanmar will silently mark two decades since the August 8, 1988 uprising, when students led activists, Buddhist monks, and even young military cadets into the streets, only to face a massacre by the army.
Meanwhile, US President George W Bush was set to meet in Bangkok with exiled political dissidents from Myanmar today, on the eve of the 20-year anniversary of a pro-democracy uprising there which was crushed by the army, leaving 3,000 dead.
His wife Laura planned to visit a clinic and Myanmar refugees on the border, where more than 120,000 civilians who have fled junta crackdowns on ethnic rebel armies live in camps. Laura Bush has been an outspoken critic of the Myanmar junta.
