Aung San Suu Kyi has gone on trial at the notorious Insein prison in Rangoon. She is charged with breaching the terms of her house arrest, because of a visit by an American man who swam across a lake to her house earlier this month.

It is still unclear how long the trial will take, but estimates range from a few days to several weeks, as the government is expected to summon 22 witnesses to support its claim.

The trial of Aung San Suu Kyi has been widely condemned – not just by Burma’s Western critics, but by its Asian neighbours too, as a ruse to keep her locked up until after the elections scheduled for 2010.

Media in several countries are monitoring events and urging a public campaign in support of Aung San Suu Kyi, who represents the best and perhaps sole hope of the Burmese people that one day there will be an end to the country’s military repression.

As a pro-democracy campaigner and leader of the opposition National League for Democracy party (NLD), Suu Kyi has spent more than 11 of the past 19 years in some form of detention under Burma’s military regime. In 1991 she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her efforts to bring democracy to Burma. At the presentation, the Chairman of the Nobel Peace Prize Committee, Francis Sejested, called her ‘an outstanding example of the power of the powerless’.

Author, poltical activist and Pulitzer Prize winner Alice Walker recently wrote a long letter to Aung San Suu Kyi about her visit to Burma. Now Walker has responded to the current news regarding the status of the devastating trial Aung San Suu Kyi is facing. She writes:

‘To paraphrase our beloved James Baldwin: the world is held together, really the world is held together by the love and compassion and clarity of thought of a very few individuals. Though this idea may be frightening, the world being in such distress, it is also comforting. At least there are a few people who can be counted on to lead us in a proper direction for survival as humans, and for thriving as a species.’

‘Aung San Suu Kyi is at the top of the list. That is really the reason she is jailed and on her way to being imprisoned in Insein Prison, in Burma, where conditions are notoriously horrific and from which inmates often emerge, if indeed they do emerge alive, broken and in need of things like wheelchairs. What can we do?’ See the full content on her blog, http://www.alicewalkersblog.com

WACC condemns the latest injustice meted out to Aung San Suu Kyi and supports international calls for the Burmese government to abandon its persecution.

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