Interviews with Khin Lay

This is a very big question for me and yeah, so mostly people and including me, think democracy should be based on the human rights. We totally believe in the 30 articles in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

So freedom is also like that. If we respect our rights and human rights, freedom is – will be in – or like that. So freedom is the freedom of thought or freedom or freedom of expression, or at least at that moment, we can have a freedom of expression. And then freedom is that – what I believe freedom is that we don’t – we do not need to fear anybody.

So we can express our feeling and we can express our thought without interfering, without disturbing others.

Khin Lay is a Burmese civil society and political activist. She was born in Yangon in 1971.

She pursued a career in education, hoping to be a university professor. That ambition changed after Aung San Suu Kyi, the leader of Burma’s democracy movement, inspired Khin Lay to take an active role in freeing her country. In 1995, Khin Lay joined Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD).

As a member of NLD, Khin Lay endured constant surveillance by the regime. In 2000, she was arrested by authorities for her involvement with the party. After five days of interrogation in which she was blindfolded and deprived of sleep, Khin Lay spent four months in Insein Prison, a facility notorious for its deplorable conditions and use of torture. She was released in 2001.

More recently, Khin Lay has focused on strengthening women’s rights and building a more robust civil society. She founded the Triangle Women Support Group, an organization dedicated to empowering Burmese women, developing their political and professional skills, as well as encouraging greater participation in public life. She believes that fostering a new generation of strong, female leaders is a key component to Burma’s democratization.

https://www.facebook.com/TriangleWomenSupportGroup