Myanmar’s government ordered more than 80 people at a shelter for patients with HIV and AIDS to leave following a visit by newly freed democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, the center’s organizers said yesterday.
Aung San Suu Kyi visited the shelter on the outskirts of Yangon on Wednesday, promising to provide it with badly needed medicines. She also addressed a crowd of more than 600 who came to see her.
A day after her visit, government officials told patients they would have to leave by next week or face legal action because the center’s permit was not being renewed, said Phyu Phyu Thin, a democracy activist who founded the operation.
By law, homeowners must seek government permission every two weeks to allow visitors to stay overnight.
“We have been allowed to renew our resident permits in the past,” Phyu Phyu Thin said.
“I think authorities want to pressure us because of aunty’s Aung San Suu Kyi’s] visit to the shelter,” said Zeyar, a member of Suu Kyi’s officially disbanded political party and one of the organizers of the shelter.
Zeyar uses only one name.
The shelter, which includes a small wooden house and a two-story building of wood and thatch walls, currently accommodates 82 patients, including young children, offering them housing, food, medicine and educational opportunities.
Zeyar said that health authorities yesterday offered to move the patients to their own HIV center.
“The patients have the right to make their own choice. The pressure by local authorities has made our patients very sad, which will adversely affect their health,” he said.
Some patients were defiant.
“I will never move out of the shelter,” said 45-year old Ma Yi Yi Nyunt, who arrived at the shelter in September.
“I could have been dead by now had I not been taken to this place. This place is a haven for people like us,” 45-year-old Maung Ohn said.
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