Suu Kyi: 'I Have So Much to Tell You'

“We haven’t seen each other for so long, I have so much to tell you,” Aung San Suu Kyi told a jubilant crowd of thousands celebrating her release last night. The Nobel laureate emerged from seven years of house arrest with such a rapport with her supporters and an unbowed attitude that made it seem that not a day had gone by, reports the New York Times. "You have to stand up for what is right," she told the crowd, calling free speech the "basis of democratic freedom" and urging the people to keep their government in check.

“She is our mother, she is our mother!” a woman cried, as the crowd sang the national anthem. The rhetoric could set Suu Kyi—released twice previously—up for a new tussle with Myanmar's military junta, though for the moment police say they “stand ready to give her whatever help she needs.” Meanwhile, the world watches, with President Obama calling her "a personal hero" and Nicolas Sarkozy warning against "any obstacle to her freedom of movement or expression."
(More Aung San Suu Kyi stories.)