Aung San Suu Kyi to Belsat TV: Headlining events is up to free media, not state


The leader of Myanmar democratic opposition who spent 15 years under house detention has arrived in Warsaw.

At the media briefing journalists managed to put only three questions to the special guest. Why Myanmar continues cooperating with the authoritarian regime of Belarus taking into account that the country announced an intention to implement democratic reforms, a Belsat TV reporter asked her. Two years ago Belarusian Prime Minister Mikhail Miasnikovich was on an official visit to the city of Naypyidaw, which got into the headlines. As a result of Miasnikovich’s trip, goods turnover between the countries increased 15-fold. It is interesting that at the same time Hillary Clinton, U.S. Secretary of State, also arrived in the capital of Myanmar but her visit was not extensively reported.

“First of all, what you have to see tells you about Burma today; as you know we are supposed to be reforming, supposed to be changing over over to democratic system but exactly the news that you’ve mentioned will let you know very clearly about how far we are not along the road to democracy. Once we are a democratic society then we’ll have free press, entirely free press, it will be very much up to each single media: a newspaper, a radio station, a TV station to put the kind of news they consider to be of true importance at the front pages or as the headlines and that’s what democracy would mean – there would be a freedom for a media to decide which news are truly important for our country,” the Nobel Peace Prize winner answered.

In the 1990 election, the National League for Democracy headed by Aung San Suu Kyi won the majority of votes, but the Myanmar authorities disregarded the results. The politician was detained and remained under house arrest in for almost 15 years. Aung San Suu Kyi might have been barred from meeting with journalists and activists but she remained the most influential oppositionist and enjoyed wide public support in Myanmar. In 2010 Aung San Suu Kyi was released but she is still an example of courage for many fighters for freedom and human rights in the world.

Belsat

www.belsat.eu/en

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