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Canada is responding to Myanmar's bloody crackdown on its citizens by promising to bestow honorary citizenship on that country's leading prisoner of conscience.

The Conservative government will ask Parliament to recognize Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi as an honorary Canadian citizen, according to a copy of the Throne Speech leaked Tuesday to The Canadian Press.

The junta that rules the country formerly known as Burma has confined Ms. Suu Kyi to her home under house arrest for years in response to her pro-democracy efforts.

"Our government will immediately call upon Parliament to confer honorary citizenship on Aung San Suu Kyi," the speech states.

"Her long struggle to bring freedom and democracy to the people of Burma has made her the embodiment of these ideals (of democracy, freedom, human rights and the rule of law) and an inspiration to all of us."

Myanmar's military junta was defiant Tuesday in the face of international efforts to sanction its repression of protests last month.

State-controlled media reported that the generals who run the country are still holding 500 demonstrators in prison. Protests have left at least 13 people dead, including a Japanese cameraman whose shooting death at point-blank range by a soldier was beamed around the world.

The junta also poured scorn on a recent United Nations Security Council statement condemning violence used by the army to crush the anti-government protests.

Those protests were launched by pro-democracy monks calling on the government to end their repression and hold talks with Ms. Suu Kyi.

She is not the first foreigner given honorary citizenship in Canada. Nelson Mandela, for example, was given similar recognition by the government of former prime minister Jean Chrétien.



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