Fundamental violations of human rights always lead to people feeling less and less human.

As I travel through my country, people often ask me how it feels to have been imprisoned in my home -first for six years, then for 19 months. How could I stand the separation from family and friends? It is ironic, I say, that in an authoritarian state it is only the prisoner of conscience who is genuinely free. Yes, we have given up our right to a normal life. But we have stayed true to that most precious part of our humanity-our conscience.

I feel that the BBC World Service is not as versatile as it used to be - or perhaps I'm not listening at the right times.

I always say that one has no right to hope without endeavor.

Justice is a dream. But it is a dream that we are determined to realize.

It's very difficult to have any faith in the sincerity of the SLORC about stamping out drug production if they find it so easy to forgive a drug baron whom at one time they said they would never, never forgive and would never, never regard as anything but a drug runner. The SLORC is far more aggressive in its attitude toward the National League for Democracy than against drug traffickers.

It is not power that corrupts but fear. Fear of losing power corrupts those who wield it and fear of the scourge of power corrupts those who are subject to it.