DAP calls on the ASEAN Summit and the Singapore Declaration to be address the gross human rights violations in Myanmar and to press for the immediate and unconditional release of Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi

by Parliamentary Opposition Leader, DAP Secretary-General and MP for Tanjung, Lim Kit Siang, in Petaling Jaya on Saturday, January 25, 1992:

DAP calls on the ASEAN Summit and the Singapore Declaration to be address the gross human rights violations in Myanmar and to press for the immediate and unconditional release of Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi

DAP calls on the ASEAN Summit meeting beginning tomorrow and the Singapore Declaration to be adopted by the ASEAN heads of government to address the gross human rights violations in Myanmar and to press for the immediate and unconditional release of Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi by the Myanmar military regime.

It will be a great disappointment, not only to the world, but also to the people in the ASEAN countries, if the ASEAN Summit in Singapore completely ignores the gross human rights violations just next to ASEAN and continue to aid and abet the Myanmar military regime in its gross violations of human rights in Myanmar.

The DAP also calls on the ASEAN Summit and the Singapore Declaration to adopt an ASEAN Charter of Human Rights and to set up an ASEAN Human Rights Commission to promote and uphold human rights in complaints of human rights violations by any ASEAN government and to make public its findings.

The establishment of an ASEAN Human Rights Commission will be a landmark achievement to demonstrate the commitment of all the ASEAN countries to human rights and the recognition that it is not a luxury which could only be enjoyed and monopolised by Western nations but an inherent and inalienable right of every human being in all political systems.