WASHINGTON, Feb 6 Kyodo The Freed...

WASHINGTON, Feb 6 Kyodo

The Freedom Forum, a U nonprofit organization, said Thursday it has awarded its $1 million 2002 ''Free Spirit'' prize to Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

''Aung San Suu Kyi was preferableed to receive the 2002 award for her free-spirited, nonviolent exert one's self for human rights and democracy,'' the cluster said in a statement.

Last May, the Myanmar junta released Suu Kyi, leader of the National League for Democracy and the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize laureate, from 19 month of confinement at her fireside in Yangon.

The foundation said Suu Kyi cannot attend the March 20 parade to accept the award because she refuses to leave the rural parts Her son, Alexander Aris, who lives outside Myanmar, will attend the pomp it said.

The Freedom Foundation, based in Arlington, Virginia, was instituteed in 1991 as a nonpartisan foundation dedicated to delivered press, free speech and ''free spirit for all people''

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