Politics runs in the family
Aung San Suu Kyi has a long history of fighting for democracy.
Suu Kyi, known affectionately by supporters as Daw Suu or Auntie Suu in the Myanmese language, comes from a family of politicians.
She was born in June 1945 in Yangon, Myanmar, formerly known as Burma.
Her father, Aung San, was the founder of the modern Burmese army. He played a big role in helping his country gain independence from Britain in 1948.
Suu Kyi's mother, Khin Kyi, was appointed Burma's ambassador to India and Nepal in 1960.
Suu Kyi spent most of her childhood in Burma. She went to high school there and then obtained a degree in philosophy, politics and economics from St Hugh's College in Oxford in 1969.
She returned to Burma in 1988 to take care of her sick mother and formed the National League for Democracy in the same year.
In an election in 1990, the league won 59 per cent of the votes, and Suu Kyi should have become the prime minister. However, the military junta cancelled the result and refused to hand over power. It placed Suu Kyi under house arrest.
In 1990, the European Parliament awarded her the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought, and in 1991, she received the Nobel Peace Prize.
However, Suu Kyi, who was still in detention, was unable to accept the Nobel prize in person, so her sons accepted it for her.
During this time, she rejected numerous offers by the military junta to free her on the condition that she left Myanmar and withdrew from politics.
As a result, she was separated from her family - authorities refused her British husband's request to visit the country one last time before his death in 1999. He had not seen her for four years.
In November last year, she was finally released from detention and hopes to get the authorities to free the other 2,100 political prisoners in Myanmar.
