A global signature campaign for the release of Burma’s political prisoners has been on March 13th, on Burma’s Human Rights Day. The campaign aims to collect 888,888 signatures before 24 May 2009, the legal date that Nobel Peace Prize winner Daw Aung San Suu Kyi should be released from house arrest. Over 150 Burma exile and solidarity groups are participating in the campaign. Events and activities will take place around the world, including in Bangkok, Chiang Mai, London, Dublin, New Delhi, Hong Kong, Manila, Seoul, Jakarta, Sydney, and Tokyo.

The petition calls on the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to make it his personal priority to secure the release of all political prisoners in Burma, as the essential first step towards national reconciliation and democratization in the country. The target symbolises 8.8.88, the day the junta massacred some 3,000 people who courageously protested in Burma’s largest democracy uprising.