Burma Nobel Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi was awarded the Mahatma Gandhi Award for Peace and Reconciliation (MAGI award) in Durban, South Africa, on Monday night.
Sein Win, who is a cousin of Suu Kyi and the head of Burmese government in exile, accepted the prize, which was given by the Durban-based committee behind the MAGI award, on behalf of Suu Kyi.
Suu Kyi was unable to receive the prize in person as she is in prison while on trial by the Burmese military regime for violating the terms of her house arrest.
"Everybody would have wanted to see her collect this prize in person," Sein Win said as quoted by AFP. "Obviously that would have been better, (but) she has to attend to her trial in Burma at the moment. I'm worried they will find her guilty."
Suu Kyi has been detained in Rangoon’s notorious Insein prison for giving refuge to an American man who swam uninvited to her home in May. If she is found guilty, she could face five years in prison.
The prize was created by the Gandhi Development Trust, which honors India’s pre-eminent political and spiritual leader, Mahatma Gandhi, who led India’s movement for independence from the British Empire.
The MAGI award was created in 2003 to mark the centenary of “Indian Opinion”, a newspaper founded by Gandhi during his early years as a lawyer in South Africa. Last year's recipient of the prize, anti-apartheid icon Nelson Mandela, fought an even longer struggle for freedom.
Nobel Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi has been deprived of her liberty for more than 13 of the last 19 years, and she has been kept in Rangoon’s notorious Insein Jail since May.
irrawaddy
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