"This week, Burmese democracy activist Aung San Suu Kyi will visit the United States for the first time in decades. Newly free after more than 20 years of near-constant detention, she is now an elected parliamentarian. Her visit is, above all, a chance to honor her long struggle for democracy. But it also highlights the vital role individual prisoners of conscience can play in personalizing the abstract rhetoric of human rights -- cutting through the wrenching ambiguities that attend the pursuit of basic universal values in a globalized world."

Suzanne Nossel, Executive Director of Amnesty International USA