Oct 23, 2007 (AP), Women Nobel Peace Prize laureates urged the United Nations on Wednesday to take decisive action to secure the release of Myanmar pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

Aung San Suu Kyi’s fellow female peace prize winners expressed "grave disappointment" that Myanmar’s junta has ignored the U.N. call for her release, in a letter published in The Guardian newspaper timed to mark her 12th year of detention.

"The Burmese regime must not be allowed to continue in its perpetration of gross violations of human rights," the letter said. "The detention of Aung San Suu Kyi is the most visible manifestation of the regime’s brutality but it is only the tip of the iceberg."

UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon had asked junta leader senior general Than Shwe on 8 January to release Aung San Suu Kyi.

The Burmese opposition leader was awarded the Nobel Peace prize in 1991. She is one of only seven living women to have won