Nobel Laureates react to Aung San Suu Kyi conviction

Burmese Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi was sentenced today to 18 months of house arrest after a court found her guilty of "violating security laws". The charge was based on her allowing a US national into the lakeside home where she has been held under house arrest.

Fourteen Nobel Laureates have responded to the conviction with an impassioned open letter to the members of the UN Security Council, calling for the Security Council to pass a resolution creating a Commission of Inquiry into war crimes and crimes against humanity in Burma, and to end the impunity of the Burmese military.

Signatories include Archbishop Desmond Tutu, His Holiness the Dalai Lama, President Mikhail Gorbachev, Elie Wiesel, President José Ramos-Horta of East Timor, President Kim Dae-Jung of South Korea, Shirin Ebadi of Iran, Wangari Maathai of Kenya, American Nobel Laureate Jody Williams, Irish Laureates Mairead Maguire and Betty Williams, Rigoberta Menchu Tum of Guatemala, John Hume of Northern Ireland and Adolfo Perez Esquivel of Argentina.

Click here to read the letter.

Elsewhere, the Elders have called the entire trial a "travesty of justice" and called on ASEAN, the European Union and the UN Security Council to reject the verdict.

Read their statement here.