Myanmar's late-December elections are unfolding in what UN rights officials describe as an atmosphere of fear, violence.

Ahead of that poll, which has been widely dismissed as an attempt by the military junta to obtain legitimacy, the country has released and dropped charges against more than 8-thousand people, many of them political detainees.

But there's no sign of freedom for any of the country's top democratic leadership, including the former leader Aung San Suu Chee.