by Salai Pi Pi
Tuesday, 09 June 2009 20:52
New Delhi (Mizzima) – Bent on humiliating and insulting detained pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, a number of anonymous groups, believed to be pro-junta, have distributed her morphed vulgar pictures in homes in central Burma.
Local residents in Mandalay, Burma’s second largest city, said they have received distorted pictures – depicting Daw Aung San Suu Kyi in compromising positions with men – dropped in their compounds in the morning.
The business card-sized pictures, which are apparently designed with Photoshop software, shows detained Opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi with two men, supposedly John William Yettaw and her late husband Michael Aris.
“The pictures had the words “Darling I miss you” in Burmese language. In one of the pictures Daw Suu is seen curling up in the arms of Yettaw,” the angry resident told Mizzima.
The resident said the pictures were dropped in their compound before they woke up in the morning, leaving no trace of who had done it. But he was quick to blame members of pro-junta groups such as the Union Solidarity and Development Association (USDA) or the Swan Arrshin.
Similar pictures have also been reportedly distributed in Myingyan and Kyuakpadaung townships in Magwe division.
The act is being viewed as a lowly effort to humiliate the Burmese Nobel Peace Laureate even as the junta has charged her of flouting her detention law and put her on trial after an American man, John William Yettaw, sneaked into her lakeside house in Rangoon in early May.
Meanwhile, a Frequency Modulated (FM) radio station based in Naypyitaw, the junta’s new jungle capital, has reportedly aired a new humour programme that mocks members of the Opposition party the National League for Democracy, particularly Aung San Suu Kyi and the latest incidents related to the uninvited Yettaw’s visit to her home.
Listeners in Rangoon said, broadcasters of Padaukmyay FM Radio had included a new gossip section named “Yettaw and the pretty girl” in their programmes and talk about how the pro-democracy leader was visited by a strange man in the intervals in their programmes.
“These days, they air gossip about the romantic story of Daw Suu and… I don’t want to talk about that programme in detail. It is nonsense, dirty and a lowly act,” said a listener of the Padauk May FM radio in Rangoon.
Padaukmyay FM radio, which is aired from 5:30 a.m. to 8:30 a.m. (Burma Standard Time), has a nationwide coverage through relay stations.
“The mockery programme is for about 20 minutes and then they play songs – and it continues like that alternatively,” the listener added.
While opposition groups see the trial of Aung San Suu Kyi as an excuse for the junta to continue detaining her, pro-junta groups have been capitalizing on the incident of Yettaw’s visit to defame the Burmese democracy icon.
Besides the radio talk-show and the distorted pictures, an internet blog, supposedly created by a pro-junta blogger, has come up with demeaning pictures and messages about Daw Aung San Suu Kyi.
The blog, which is reportedly allowed to be viewed inside Burma, has several morphed caricatures of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and several other men including caricatures of Yettaw and US president Barack Obama in obscene acts.
In messages posted on the blog, the writer accuses pro-democracy activists and groups including Daw Aung San Suu Kyi of leaning towards the West and depicts them in vulgar caricatures.
Aung San Suu Kyi, meanwhile is standing trial in the Insein prison court under charges of violating her detention law. Her lawyers have pleaded not guilty. The trial has attracted international criticism and calls for her immediate release have come from countries including the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean), which traditionally maintains a policy of non-interference in member state’s internal affairs.
The junta, however, has paid no heed to the calls saying the trial was being conducted in accordance with the law of the country and it is an internal matter where no other country should interfere.
Opposition groups and critics see the trial as an effort to continue detaining Aung San Suu Kyi in a move to keep her out of the public scenario before their planned election in 2010.
Some information contributed by Myint Maung
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
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