Lammy makes impassioned plea for release of Suu Kyi

Foreign secretary demands ex-Myanmar leader be freed as she prepares to spend fifth year under yoke of military junta

- KATE DEVLIN

David Lammy has issued a historic and impassioned plea for the release of Aung San Suu Kyi, imprisoned by the brutal dictatorship in Myanmar.

In a major intervention, the foreign secretary has for the first time made a direct appeal to the military junta to free her and give the country’s people “the peace and democracy they deserve”.

On the fourth anniversary of the 1 February coup that saw her jailed, he said the democracy campaigner has been detained on “political charges” and added: “We have not forgotten”.

It is the first call for her freedom from a serving cabinet minister since she was sentenced and follows the recent release of an Independent TV documentary Cancelled: The Rise and Fall of Aung San Suu Kyi.

To mark the anniversary of her imprisonment, her son Kim Aris is delivering a letter calling for her release to Myanmar’s embassy in London and said that as the “last flame of hope for peace and democracy” she “must not be allowed to be snuffed out”.

Now aged 79, her drive for democracy in her country saw her face years under house arrest and win the Nobel Peace Prize. But she became a deeply divisive figure internationally after she failed to speak out against the military’s extreme violence against Myanmar’s Rohingya Muslim minority.

Mr Lammy told The Independent: "Four years ago, Myanmar's military overthrew Aung San Suu Kyi's democratically elected government, stripping the Myanmar people of their right to a democratic voice.