Myanmar democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi turned 61, alone and under house arrest in the military-ruled state that has ignored calls to free one of the world's best known political prisoners.

Some 300 supporters began a day of ceremonies and protests near her crumbling Yangon house, where the Nobel peace prize laureate has spent 10 of the past 17 years behind barbed wire and isolated from the outside world.

Members of Myanmar National League for Democracy (NLD) shout slogans in front of the party's headquarter in Yangon. Myanmar democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi turned 61, alone and under house arrest in the military-ruled state that has ignored calls to free one of the world's best known political prisoners.(AFP)

Members of her National League for Democracy (NLD) offered Buddhist prayers and released doves and 100 colorful balloons at their party headquarters as 20 plainclothes security personnel kept a close eye on activities.

NLD supporters, clad in the party's orange uniforms and T-shirts bearing the picture of the pro-democracy leader, chanted "Free Suu Kyi!"

"We wish her good health," said Lai Lai, a senior member of the NLD, the opposition party which won 1990 elections that were annulled by the junta, and whose members have been targeted with harassment and arrest.

Several NLD members also prayed for Aung San Suu Kyi at the Shwedagon Pagoda, the most notable building in Yangon.

Later in the day, police arrested a man in his 40s at the City Hall as he was about to shout demands for her release. Witnesses said the man was wearing the Aung San Suu Kyi T-shirt. The NLD said he was not a party member.

Aung San Suu Kyi, the foreign-educated daughter of national independence hero General Aung San, underwent a hysterectomy in 2003 and was treated last week for stomach troubles.

Five Buddhist monks prayed for her health and her immediate release from house arrest, which was extended by the isolated junta for another year in May.

Supporters in Australia, Asia, Europe and the United States, and ethnic minority guerrillas and refugees near and across the Thai border, were also marking her birthday.

In Bangkok monks and supporters held a birthday ceremony outside the Myanmar embassy, following similar events with hundreds of people in Kuala Lumpur and New Delhi at the weekend.

In the United States, home to Myanmar's largest exile community, the Washington-based US Campaign for Burma organized events in more than 270 towns and cities over the weekend to demand her freedom.

Bangkok-based exile group the National Council of the Union of Burma condemned the regime, which calls itself the State Peace and Development Council, and accused it of "brutality and mismanagement."

It demanded the junta led by 73-year-old General Than Shwe "immediately release Aung San Suu Kyi, all jailed members of National League for Democracy, women political activists and democracy-loving people."

The regime had showed its "sheer disinterest in a peaceful and negotiated political solution to the festering crises facing Burma today," it said.

Aung San Suu Kyi studied and worked abroad including for the United Nations but returned to Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, in 1988 to care for her ailing mother.

That same year mass pro-democracy rallies broke out but were bloodily crushed by the military. Aung San Suu Kyi co-founded the NLD and was put under house arrest in 1989. She refused an offer of freedom if she left the country for good.

The opposition party won 1990 elections by a landslide but the military, which has ruled the country since 1962, ignored the results.

Her most recent house arrest began after her convoy was attacked by a regime-backed mob during a political tour of northern Myanmar on May 30, 2003. The attack left four people dead and Aung San Suu Kyi was briefly jailed.

She has had no contact with the outside world since, except for a short-wave radio and a monthly visit from her doctor. She lives with two maids but is not allowed to receive guests, including her two adult sons.

Following her extended detention the United States, an increasingly vocal critic of Myanmar, has said it would pursue an unprecedented UN Security Council resolution to condemn the junta's repressive policies.

Copyright 2006 Agence France Presse

###