Burma is facing intense
international pressure to release pro-democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi
after she was imprisoned ahead of a new trial next week for breaching
the terms of her house arrest.
The ruling military
junta took the Nobel Peace Prize laureate from her home on Thursday to
Rangoon's notorious Insein prison, where she was charged over a bizarre
incident in which an American man swam to her lakeside residence.
The
United States led Western calls for her immediate release while rights
groups urged the UN Security Council to intervene to help the
63-year-old, whose trial is due to start at the prison on Monday.
There
was no comment from Burma's secretive regime, which has kept Aung San
Suu Kyi in detention for most of the last 19 years and now looks set to
do so past controversial elections that are due next year.
US
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said she was "deeply troubled" by
the "baseless" case laid against Aung San Suu Kyi just days before her
latest six-year detention was to have expired.
UN
Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said he was "gravely concerned" while the
UN special envoy on human rights in Burma, Tomas Ojea Quintana, called
for Aung San Suu Kyi to be freed, and said her detention broke the
country's laws.
Britain, France and other western
nations - which like the United States have imposed sanctions on the
country formerly known as Burma - condemned the decision and said it
did not bode well for the 2010 elections.
A group
of eminent statesmen including South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu
and former US President Jimmy Carter also demanded her release.
Indonesia
became the first of Burma's partners in the 10-member Association of
Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to call for the junta to release Aung
San Suu Kyi and drop the "arbitrary" new charges against her.
Burmese
authorities are currently holding Aung San Suu Kyi and her two maids,
who were also charged, at a house inside the grounds of Insein Prison
pending the trial, her lawyers have said.
Stopped
by the junta from taking power after leading her National League for
Democracy Party from winning a landslide victory in the country's last
election in 1990, she now faces a maximum jail term of five years.
The
case centred around a mysterious US national, John Yettaw, who was
arrested last week after using a pair of homemade flippers to swim
across a lake to Aung San Suu Kyi's crumbling house.
Reportedly
a Mormon father of seven and Vietnam War veteran, the heavy-set
53-year-old also faces charges of violating the restricted area around
her home and breaching immigration conditions.
His
motives remain unclear but Irrawaddy magazine, published by Burma
exiles in Thailand, dismissed speculation about the coincidental timing
of the incident before the expiry of her detention order.
It said he was "simply a weird character who acted alone," while Aung San Suu Kyi's lawyers have described him as a "fool".
Yettaw
had also met with Burma exile groups in Thailand and reportedly told
them he was working on a faith-based book on heroism, the magazine said.
New
York-based Human Rights Watch called on the UN's Ban to press the
authorities for her release, accusing the Burmese junta of taking
advantage of the US man's "bizarre stunt" to keep Aung San Suu Kyi
detained.
Amnesty International demanded that the UN Security Council "urgently intervene" to secure her release.