BURMESE REGIME BANS IMPORTS OF THE CD SET, RELEASED TODAY

“Please use your liberty to promote ours.” Taking the words of the world’s only imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize recipient, Aung San Suu Kyi as a call to action, many of the world’s greatest artists such as U2, Natalie Merchant, Pearl Jam, Coldplay, Ani DiFranco, R.E.M., Avril Lavigne, Talib Kweli, Peter Gabriel, Ben Harper, Paul McCartney, Eric Clapton, Sting, Bonnie Raitt, Damien Rice, Travis, Indigo Girls and Matchbox Twenty have joined together to create a major benefit album, For The Lady: A Benefit To Free Aung San Suu Kyi. Rhino Records releases the double CD featuring 27 tracks today. Proceeds from the sale of the album will benefit the non-profit U.S.
Campaign For Burma.

Since 1988 Aung San Suu Kyi has led the National League for Democracy (NLD) in Burma campaigning for democracy and human rights against one of the world’s most brutal military regimes. Known to many as “Asia’s Nelson Mandela”, she is a symbol of hope for those struggling for freedom around the world, and received the Nobel Peace Prize for her nonviolent work to restore human rights to a country ravaged by military rule. She has spent the majority of the past 14 years placed under house arrest by Burma’s repressive junta, and thousands of her supporters have been arrested, tortured and killed.

For The Lady will feature unreleased material by R.E.M., Pearl Jam, Tom Morello’s (Rage Against the Machine) The Nightwatchman, Damien Rice, Lili Hadyn and Better Than Ezra. The album also features a song banned by Burma’s military regime, “Walk On”, which U2 dedicated to Aung San Suu Kyi on their last album and a song in Burmese written by a jailed student democracy activist. Like the leaders of former communist states, Burma’s military regime is fearful of the power of rock and roll, and singing a freedom song usually results in a minimum seven year prison sentence.

Copies can be purchased at
www.uscampaignforburma.org/freedomstore/forthelady.html