Fourteen Nobel Laureates today released an open letter to the members of the United Nations Security Council. This, in response to the wrongful conviction and sentencing of Aung San Suu Kyi –Burma’s democratically elected leader.

Signatories to the open letter include Archbishop Desmond Tutu, His Holiness the Dalai Lama, President Mikhail Gorbachev, and Nobel Women’s Initiative Laureates Shirin Ebadi, Wangari Maathai, Mairead Maguire, Rigoberta Menchú Tum, Betty Williams and Jody Williams.

Suu Kyi was sentenced today to an additional 18 months house arrest for breaching the terms of her most recent period of house arrest. She has already been under house arrest for 14 of the last 20 years.

In the open letter, the Laureates insisted that the UN Security Council must give its attention to Burma, and called on 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.

Read the open letter here.

The Elders – a group of eminent global leaders founded by Nobel Peace Laureate Nelson Mandela – have also called on ASEAN, the European Union and the UN Security Council not to accept the verdict and sentence delivered today in Burma against their fellow Elder, Aung San Suu Kyi.

On August 7th, Nobel Women’s Initiative partner the Women’s League of Burma, joined by sixty-four leading women’s organizations, sent an open letter to the UN Secretary-General and members of the Security Council. The letter called for the prosecution of General Than Shwe at the International Criminal Court, and an immediate end to the longstanding impunity that has been afforded to the brutal military junta.

“The decades-long struggle to end atrocities and repression and bring about national reconciliation and democracy in Burma is at a particularly critical moment. The nonviolent efforts to bring about the change so desperately needed require the full support of the United Nations Security Council.” – Open letter to the UN Security Council

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Pressure builds as UN delays action over Suu Kyi, Associated Press, 12 August 2009.

Nobel laureates urge UN probe, The Peninsula, 12 August 2009.

Myanmar activist is detained 18 more months, Wall Street Journal, 12 August 2009.

UN Security Council to meet on Suu Kyi sentence, Reuters India, 11 August 2009.

Myanmar junta returns Suu Kyi to house arrest, CNN, 11 August 2009.

Myanmar sentence draws criticism, New York Times, 11 August 2009.

Read more about Burma’s struggle for democracy and human rights.

Urge the UN Security Council to establish a Commission of Inquiry on Burma.