BANGKOK (AFP) – Amnesty International urged military-ruled Myanmar Thursday to overturn a new law barring all prisoners, including Aung San Suu Kyi, from belonging to a political party ahead of elections this year.

The law, printed for the first time Wednesday in state newspapers, was widely condemned outside Myanmar as a new attempt to exclude Suu Kyi and members of her National League for Democracy (NLD) from running in the polls.

‘’There are at least 2,200 political prisoners in Myanmar, most of whom are in prison simply because they tried to exercise their rights peacefully,’’ said Benjamin Zawacki, Amnesty International’s Myanmar researcher.

‘’Instead of passing laws that strip away more of their rights, the Myanmar authorities should immediately release all political prisoners, including Aung San Suu Kyi, and remove restrictions on their political activity.’’

Zawacki said Amnesty was ‘’greatly concerned’’ activists would come under increased repression in the run up to the elections.

‘’The Myanmar authorities seem determined to stamp out any political challenge to their rule,’’ he added.

The new law means the NLD, which won Myanmar’s last elections in 1990 but was stopped from taking power by the junta, would be abolished if it failed to obey the rules.

Suu Kyi was sentenced to three years’ jail in August over an incident in which a US man swam to her lakeside home, but her sentence was commuted by junta supremo Than Shwe to 18 months under house arrest.

The Nobel Peace Laureate has been in detention for 14 of the last 20 years.

The United States, which sketched out a new policy of engagement towards Myanmar in September last year, on Wednesday slammed the new election law, saying it ‘’makes of mockery of the democratic process’’