A former Bond girl who is starring in a new film about pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi has been banned from Burma.
Michelle Yeoh, who starred with Pierce Brosnan in 1997's Tomorrow Never dies, was deported from the country this week.
She was trying to visit Burma for a second time - but had been blacklisted for meeting Suu Kyi last December.
The former Miss Malaysia is believed to have angered the hard-line regime - who did not even let her past the airport when she arrived on June 22.
Reports from the capital Rangoon revealed airport officials sent her back to Thailand, where she had flown from, on the next available flight.
When Yeoh was chosen to play the role of Suu Kyi, she flew to Burma and spent time with the 66-year-old to get a feel for the part she was going to play in the Luc Besson movie The Lady, which is set to be released later this year.
Yeoh - who played the role of a beautiful, but tough, Chinese spy in the Bond movie - said she hoped her portrayal would raise awareness about the Novel peace prize winner's story.
Suu Kyi's opposition to the regime has kept her mostly under house arrest for the past 20 years.
She was released last year, days after an election that her party boycotted.
A Burmese official who confirmed that Miss Yeoh had been deported said: 'She did not have the chance to enter Myanmar (Burma) again.
'She was deported straight away on the first flight after arriving at Yangon (Rangoon) International Airport.'
Another official said: 'She's on the blacklist now.'
Officials did not reveal why she had been blacklisted.
But Burma's repressive government has routinely rejected visa requests by journalists and others who have been seen as critics of the regime.
A spokesman for Miss Suu Kyi - who was formerly married to British academic Michael Aris, who died of prostate cancer in 1999 at the age of 53 - confirmed Miss Yeoh had been deported but said he had no further details.
Although the military junta handed power to a civilian government in March, critics say little has changed and the new government is just a front for continued, repressive, rule by the army, which has been in power for the past 49 years.
Michelle Yeoh, who starred with Pierce Brosnan in 1997's Tomorrow Never dies, was deported from the country this week.
She was trying to visit Burma for a second time - but had been blacklisted for meeting Suu Kyi last December.
The former Miss Malaysia is believed to have angered the hard-line regime - who did not even let her past the airport when she arrived on June 22.
Reports from the capital Rangoon revealed airport officials sent her back to Thailand, where she had flown from, on the next available flight.
When Yeoh was chosen to play the role of Suu Kyi, she flew to Burma and spent time with the 66-year-old to get a feel for the part she was going to play in the Luc Besson movie The Lady, which is set to be released later this year.
Yeoh - who played the role of a beautiful, but tough, Chinese spy in the Bond movie - said she hoped her portrayal would raise awareness about the Novel peace prize winner's story.
Suu Kyi's opposition to the regime has kept her mostly under house arrest for the past 20 years.
She was released last year, days after an election that her party boycotted.
'She was deported straight away on the first flight after arriving at Yangon (Rangoon) International Airport.'
Another official said: 'She's on the blacklist now.'
Officials did not reveal why she had been blacklisted.
But Burma's repressive government has routinely rejected visa requests by journalists and others who have been seen as critics of the regime.
A spokesman for Miss Suu Kyi - who was formerly married to British academic Michael Aris, who died of prostate cancer in 1999 at the age of 53 - confirmed Miss Yeoh had been deported but said he had no further details.
Although the military junta handed power to a civilian government in March, critics say little has changed and the new government is just a front for continued, repressive, rule by the army, which has been in power for the past 49 years.
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