The Burmese Freedom Fighter

Aung San Suu Kyi, the Burmese pro-democracy leader and Nobel Peace laureate symbolises Burma's struggle to be free.Born on June 19th, 1945, she was the daughter of Aung San, who was assassinated when she was just two years old. Educated in the United Kingdom, Burma and India, she met and married Michael Aris, a Tibet scholar in 1972- they had two sons.On her return to Burma in 1988, to nurse her mother, she became involved in the nations' pro-democracy uprising, which lead to the deaths of up to 5.000 demonstrators by the military.On March 27th 1999 Michael Aris died from cancer in London and, although he petitioned the authorities to be allowed to visit Aung San in Burma his request was denied and, although the Government tried to encourage Aung San to visit her family abroad, she knew she would never be allowed back in Burma. After spending more then 15 years in detention, most of it under house arrest, she was released from her current third period of detention on Saturday 13th November 2010. She has become a beacon to freedom for her thousands of supporters, and her job is not yet done.