The Hollywood actor Michelle Yeoh, who stars as the pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi in an upcoming movie, has been deported fromBurma.
The Malaysian actor arrived in the country's main city, Rangoon, on 22 June and was deported the same day because she was on a blacklist, a government official said.
The official did not say why Yeoh was on the list, but Burma's repressive government has routinely rejected the visa requests of journalists and perceived critics for years.
Aung San Suu Kyi's spokesman Nyan Win confirmed Yeoh had been deported but had no other details.
The Luc Besson movie about Aung San Suu Kyi's life, The Lady, is due out later this year, and Yeoh has said she hopess her portrayal of Aung San Suu Kyi will raise awareness about the Nobel peace prize winner's story.
Aung San Suu Kyi, 66, has spent most of the past two decades detained by the former military junta. She was released last year, days after an election that her party boycotted and in which she was barred from being a candidate.
The vote was the nation's first in 20 years, and in March the junta handed power to a civilian government. But critics say little has changed and the new government is merely a front for continued rule by the army, which has been in power since 1962.
Yeoh visited Burma in December and spent time with Aung San Suu Kyi for the movie, which was filmed in neighbouring Thailand.
Yeoh, a former Miss Malaysia, shot to international fame when she co-starred with Pierce Brosnan in the 1997 James Bond film Tomorrow Never Dies as a tough but beautiful Chinese spy. She has also starred in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Memoirs of a Geisha.
The Malaysian actor arrived in the country's main city, Rangoon, on 22 June and was deported the same day because she was on a blacklist, a government official said.
The official did not say why Yeoh was on the list, but Burma's repressive government has routinely rejected the visa requests of journalists and perceived critics for years.
Aung San Suu Kyi's spokesman Nyan Win confirmed Yeoh had been deported but had no other details.
The Luc Besson movie about Aung San Suu Kyi's life, The Lady, is due out later this year, and Yeoh has said she hopess her portrayal of Aung San Suu Kyi will raise awareness about the Nobel peace prize winner's story.
Aung San Suu Kyi, 66, has spent most of the past two decades detained by the former military junta. She was released last year, days after an election that her party boycotted and in which she was barred from being a candidate.
The vote was the nation's first in 20 years, and in March the junta handed power to a civilian government. But critics say little has changed and the new government is merely a front for continued rule by the army, which has been in power since 1962.
Yeoh, a former Miss Malaysia, shot to international fame when she co-starred with Pierce Brosnan in the 1997 James Bond film Tomorrow Never Dies as a tough but beautiful Chinese spy. She has also starred in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Memoirs of a Geisha.
