YANGON, Myanmar - Myanmar's military junta extended the detention of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi on Tuesday, ignoring worldwide appeals to free the Nobel laureate who has been detained for more than 12 of the past 18 years, an official said.
The duration of the extension was not immediately known, the official said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media. In the past, the junta has renewed Suu Kyi's detention for six-month or one-year periods.
Suu Kyi was personally informed of her continued imprisonment by officials from the Home Ministry who entered her home prior to the announcement, the official said.
Suu Kyi, who has been under house arrest continuously since May 2003, has long been the symbol of the regime's brutality and the focus of a worldwide campaign that has lobbied for her release.
The extension was issued despite a Myanmar law that stipulates no one can be held longer than five years without being released or put on trial.
Earlier Tuesday, police hauled away about 20 opposition party members who were protesting Suu Kyi's detention. Witnesses saw riot police shove members of the National League for Democracy into a truck as they were marching from the party's headquarters to Suu Kyi's home.
Some of the detainees wore Suu Kyi T-shirts and others the party uniform, a peach-colored jacket, sarong and cone-shaped hat. Thrown into the truck, two members seated by windows unfurled a 2-foot (60-centimeter) poster of Suu Kyi before being ordered to roll it back up.
Suu Kyi's house arrest