Officials ready Suu Kyi's "Nov 13" release

Aung San Suu Kyi

November 10, 2010 YANGON (KATAKAMI / CHANNEL NEWS ASIA) --- : Security preparations are under way for the expected release of Myanmar's detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi in the next few days, officials in the military-ruled country said Wednesday.

"We haven't got any instruction from superiors for her release yet. But we are preparing security plans for November 13," a government official told AFP on condition of anonymity.

Suu Kyi, who has spent most of the past two decades locked up, had her detention extended by 18 months in August last year over a bizarre incident in which an American man swam uninvited to her lakeside home.

Her lawyers say the current period of detention started with her imprisonment on May 14 last year and they expect her to be freed on Saturday.

Another official, who also did not want to be named, said: "We don't have the order yet. It will be at the last minute."

Nyan Win, a spokesman for Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD), said the party had compiled a list of members who would meet Suu Kyi after her release.

"We will draw up a plan for the future after she meets with these people," Nyan Win, who is also one of Suu Kyi's lawyers, told AFP.

He said her party had not received any information from the authorities about when she would be released.

"They never told us in advance in the past. But what I want to say is they should inform her when she will be freed. That's why we will ask them today (with a letter) to inform us about the matter," he said.

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Myanmar’s Suu Kyi wants to ‘tweet’

Aung San Suu Kyi

October 18, 2010 (KATAKAMI / THE JAKARTA POST / AP ) --- Myanmar's detained pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi wants to sign up for a Twitter account once she is released so that she can "tweet" and keep in touch with the younger generation, her lawyer said Monday.

The 65-year-old Nobel Peace Prize winner, who has been detained for 15 of the past 21 years, entered her latest period of detention in May 2003 before the Twitter era started.

Her detention expires on Nov. 13, prompting speculation she will be freed though there has been no such official announcement from the ruling military junta. The country's first election in 20 years will take place days earlier on Nov. 7, timing that analysts say was designed to keep the opposition leader locked away for the polls.

"Daw Aung San Suu Kyi's current wish is to sign up on Twitter when she is released," said her lawyer Nyan Win, who has visited her twice in the past week. "She told me she wants to use Twitter to get in touch with the younger generation inside and outside the country."

"She wishes to be able to tweet every day and keep in touch," he said.

Suu Kyi has no phone line or any access to the Internet, though she has a laptop, Nyan Win said. He described her as computer- and tech-savvy and adept with electronic gadgets.

Under the rules of her detention, Suu Kyi is allowed to read state-controlled newspapers and private local news journals and magazines, to listen to the radio and to watch state-run television but she has no satellite dish to receive foreign broadcasts.

Her lawyers are among the few people allowed to see Suu Kyi, aside from her doctors and occasional visits with U.N. and foreign dignitaries.

According to July statistics from the state-run Post and Telecommunication Ministry, there are 400,000 internet users in Myanmar, with the vast majority in the former capital Yangon and the second-largest city of Mandalay.