Suu Kyi supporters aim to mark 80th birthday with 80,000 video greetings

Activists are hoping to collect 80,000 video greetings for Aung San Suu Kyi as the detained leader of Myanmar’s ousted elected government marks her 80th birthday on Thursday. The effort, dubbed the “Suu 80 Birthday Campaign,” calls on Myanmar nationals, both at home and abroad, to send recorded messages of 30 seconds or less to organisers so that they can be shared with her after her release. “I encourage everyone to upload a birthday message in her honour, a seemingly small gesture that carries profound significance as a lasting expression of our collective solidarity,” her son, Kim Aris, said in a post on Facebook promoting the campaign. Aris, whose Burmese name is Htein Lin, will also complete an 80km run—10km per day for eight consecutive days—on June 19 as a tribute to what he calls his mother’s “quiet strength, and her enduring spirit.” Suu Kyi has been held in detention since her arrest on February 1, 2021—the day Myanmar’s military seized power in a coup that has ignited more than four years of civil war. Currently serving a total of 27 years behind bars at an unknown location, she has not had any contact with her family or lawyers since her conviction nearly three years ago on a multitude of politically motivated charges. Prior to entering parliament in 2012, Suu Kyi spent decades under house arrest as the internationally celebrated leader of Myanmar’s pro-democracy movement. After her party, the National League for Democracy, swept to power in 2015, however, she faced widespread criticism for her stance on the Rohingya, denying that mass killings directed against the Muslim minority amounted to genocide. Nearly a million Rohingya fled to neighbouring Bangladesh in 2017 to escape “clearance operations” conducted by Myanmar’s military in response to alleged terrorist attacks. Since the coup that saw her party forced from power just months after winning another landslide election victory, her situation has attracted relatively little media coverage. Aris is hoping that her upcoming birthday will help to put her plight back into the spotlight—and restore her once iconic image. “Maymay [Mom] has devoted her life to democracy and human rights, spending a quarter of it in prison or house arrest due to her unwavering compassion for her people and singular vision for a democratic and free Burma, where all citizens can live in true peace,” he said in his Facebook post.

Suu Kyi supporters aim to mark 80th birthday with 80,000 video greetings

The campaign aims to show solidarity with the ousted political leader as she faces decades behind bars under the current regime

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