Women of Interest—Aung San Suu Kyi

Aung San Suu Kyi was born June 19, 1945, in Rangoon, Burma (now Yangon, Myanmar) and was the first State Counsellor of Myanmar, which is comparable to our Prime Minister. During the 1988 Uprisings, Aung rose to power, becoming the General Secretary of the National League for Democracy (NLD), which was a party she formed, along with other retired army officials who were critical of the military rule at the time. In 1990 the NLD won 81% of the parliamentary seats, but the military refused to turn over power. An international protest erupted and Aung, who was already under house arrest, remained under house arrest until 2010. As a result, Aung San Suu Kyi became one of the world’s most prominent political prisoners along with Nelson Mandela, Mather Luther King, and Mohandas Gandhi. A few of Aung’s numerous awards and honors include the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991, a Gandhi Award from Simon Fraser University in 1995, and the CAW Nelson Mandela Human Rights Award in 2000.