With so many supporters soon to be in high places, the Former Political Prisoner Society has high expectations of the incoming National League for Democracy government. About 100 of the MPs preparing to take their seats on February 1, including NLD leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, served time as prisoners of conscience, they say.
The FPPS is repositioning itself as a more political organisation, expanding its focus as it adjusts to the new political realities in the country, said society secretary U Tun Kyi. “We can’t say yet if we will contest the 2020 election, but we are going to get more involved in political matters.”
The goals of the FPPS are to secure the release all political prisoners without exception, to support their family members, to rehabilitate their lives, and to pursue national reconciliation, peace and democracy.
Membership of the society is open to all who fit the current definition of a political prisoner – that is, anyone who has been detained for political reasons because of actions intended to promote freedom, equality, human rights or ethnic minority rights.