Press Release: WOMENS FREEDOM VIGIL

What: Womens Freedom Vigil, a commemoration of the women of Burma

When: June 17, 2010, 6:45 pm - 8:00 pm

Where: Church of the Holy Trinity

10 Trinity Square, Toronto

Who: Join award-winning author Karen Connelly and Khin Kyi, a former Internally Displaced
Person, in honouring Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and all women defenders of human rights

June 19, 2010 is Aung San Suu Kyis 65th birthday, the 15th birthday she is celebrating under house
arrest. People around the world are taking this opportunity to draw the worlds attention to the
situation in Burma. Aung San Suu Kyi is an icon of peace, democracy, perseverance and faith in
the goodness of humanity. She represents the struggle of all the women of Burma. She has called
on all of us to use our liberty to promote the liberty of all Burmese. It is our responsibility to
support her and the people of Burma.

The ruling military junta in Burma has planned elections that will take place later this year;
elections that are a total sham as they have sidelined Aung San Suu Kyi, 2200 political prisoners
and her party, the National League for Democracy (NLD). The NLD won 82% of seats in the May
1990 elections but they were never allowed to convene parliament. Under the military juntas new
election rules, the party no longer exists.

The FREEDOM VIGIL commemorates the 15 years Aung San Suu Kyi, Nobel Peace Laureate and
honorary Canadian Citizen, has spent without her freedom, honours all Burmese women and hopes
to persuade the Government of Canada to consider the Burma issue at the G-8.

Come, stand with human rights defenders in solidarity with the people of Burma.

This event is organized by the Canadian Campaign for Free Burma (CC4FB). CC4FB is a group of
concerned Canadians from all walks of life and from across the political spectrum that, for reasons
both personal and compassionate, have come together to support the democracy and human rights
movement in Burma. For more information on CC4FB, please visit our website, www.cc4fb.org.

CONTACT For general information or to arrange an interview please contact Hannah Lynch,
hannahrlynch@gmail.com, 416-333-6717.

DONT FORGET BURMA! Please use your liberty to promote ours.

Aung San Suu Kyi, Imprisoned Leader of the National League for Democracy
 BIOGRAPHIES OF OUR SPEAKERS

Karen Connelly Award-winning author

Karen is one of Canada's most successful young writers. She is the author of nine books of best-
selling fiction, non-fiction and poetry. Her latest book, Burmese Lessons, a memoir about her time
among revolutionaries, dissidents, and refugees in Burma and on the Thai-Burma border, was
short-listed for the BC National Nonfiction Prize. It is also an Editor's Choice book for Reader's
Digest (March 2010) as well as an editor's pick in Elle Magazine and More Magazine.

Her novel, The Lizard Cage, was published to international acclaim and won the 2007 Orange
Broadband Prize for New Writers. It illuminates the tragic story of modern Burma through the
lives of a political prisoner and the child-labourer he befriends.

Karen is a board member of PEN Canada and an active participant in the Free Burma Movement.

Khin Kyi Karen refugee and former Internally Displaced Person

Khin Kyi is an ethnic Karen woman from Burma. She and her family lived as Internally Displaced
Person (IDPs) in the jungles of Karen State as they fled forced labour, forced work as
minesweepers, persecution and brutality perpetrated by the military junta. Their lives were in
constant danger of attack and they moved regularly to avoid detection from the military.
Eventually, they fled to a refugee camp in Thailand.

They were accepted to Canada through the refugee resettlement program and arrived in Canada in
December 2008. She and her family now reside in Toronto.

DONT FORGET BURMA! Please use your liberty to promote ours.

Aung San Suu Kyi, Imprisoned Leader of the National League for Democracy
 BACKGROUND INFORMATION
Burma has been under oppressive military rule since 1962.The military regime has a human rights
record which Human Rights Watch calls deplorable. Forced labour, summary executions, rape,
torture, religious persecution, the use of human minesweepers and the recruitment of child soldiers
are routine. The UN Special Rapporteur on human rights in Burma, Toms Ojea Quintana, has
recommended in his March 2010 report that the UN should consider establishing a Commission of
Inquiry into war crimes and crimes against humanity by the Burmese government.

In 1988, mass street protests demanding democracy and human rights ended with the massacre of
thousands, and the arrest and torture of many more. Responding to increasing pressure, the regime
conducted elections in 1990. Aung San Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy (NLD)
won the vote by a landslide. Instead of honouring the national vote, the regime put Suu Kyi under
house arrest, imprisoned her supporters and fellow politicians and then embarked on their own
roadmap to democracy.

One step in the regimes roadmap was the drafting of a new constitution. In 2007, 14 years after
the drafting committee was formed, the constitution was declared completed. The regime
conducted their sham constitution referendum a few days after the devastating cyclone Nargis in
May 2008 that caused the loss of 150,000 lives and affected 3 million people. The United Nations
request for international observers to monitor this vote was denied by the military regime.

This constitution, which reserves 25% of parliamentary seats for the military and ensures that the
most powerful new institution, the National Security Council, will be completely controlled by the
generals, is not available for the population to read they were asked to vote on a document they
did not know. Anyone found speaking out against this constitution is automatically sentenced to a
minimum of three years in Burmas prisons notorious for torture.

In March 2010, the junta announced unjust new electoral laws in preparation for the elections
planned for later this year. The election laws prohibit Suu Kyi and political prisoners from being
members in political parties. This is clearly another step in the wrong direction taken by the
military authorities. The political party registration law makes a mockery of the democratic
process and ensures that the upcoming elections will be devoid of credibility.

The SPDC has ignored numerous demands from the UN and world leaders to release all political
prisoners including Suu Kyi and ethnic leaders, work towards national reconciliation and hold an
all inclusive, credible election which would create a democratic Burma. We cannot allow the loss
of yet another generation to this oppressive rule.

Canadians are united in our condemnation of the military regime that has ruled Burma for 48
years. The Canadian Campaign for Free Burma deplores the Burmese military's history of human
rights violations and their arrogant refusal to recognize the result of the free and fair election they
themselves conducted in 1990 and was won in a landslide by Suu Kyis party, the National League
for Democracy, now defunct by the juntas 2010 election law.
DONT FORGET BURMA! Please use your liberty to promote ours.
Aung San Suu Kyi, Imprisoned Leader of the National League for Democracy