As a college student, Bo Kyi participated in Burma's "8.8.88 Uprising," a popular revolt against military rule that reached a turning point on August 8, 1988. On that day, after months of unrest, millions of people took to the streets calling for an end to military rule. The military government's violent response to the uprising resulted in the deaths of an estimated 3,000 people during the seven months of protests.
"The outside world largely ignored events inside Burma, but for me there was no escape," said Bo Kyi. "As a student in Rangoon, I participated in many demonstrations and witnessed the brutal suppression by the riot police that killed and wounded so many."
Bo Kyi ultimately spent seven years and three months in prison for his political activism. He suffered repeated interrogations, beatings, shackling, and torture in prison, amid squalid living conditions. In prison, Bo Kyi learned to speak and write in English, hiding his educational materials each time a warden passed his cell.
Upon his release from prison, Bo Kyi fled to the Burma-Thailand border, where he helped to found the Assistance Association of Political Prisoners in Mae Sot, Thailand. Some 1,920 political activists remain imprisoned in Burma, where they endure abysmal treatment. The number detained increased dramatically after the August and September 2007 crackdown when security forces brutally suppressed peaceful demonstrations of activists, monks and ordinary people.
Assistance Association of Political Prisoners works on behalf of current and former political prisoners and their families. It provides them with financial support and medical care, monitors prison conditions, and advocates internationally for the prisoners' release.
Over the last 20 years, Bo Kyi has demonstrated unfaltering courage, sharing his story and those of other political prisoners and exposing the Burmese military government's abuses. Human Rights Watch honors Bo Kyi for his heroic efforts to speak out against Burmese repression and to advocate on behalf of those who have dared to criticize the military government.