Inside Burma's Insein jail

Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi is believed to be detained in the country's notorious Insein jail.

Former prisoners at the jail have told the BBC's East Asia Today programme what conditions are like:

The UK foreign office has said that Aung San Suu Kyi is being held in a two-room hut in the prison, following her detention on 30 May.

The block is believed to have been especially constructed for the opposition leader.

Bo Kyi, a former political detainee at Insein, said that he watched the block being built, and that it had a bedroom, a visiting room and a toilet.

Diplomats in Rangoon say that although the conditions in which Aung San Suu Kyi is being held are probably not as bad as in the rest of the prison, they are still extremely worried about her.

"I was immediately struck by the horrible stench. There was no toilet, just a slop bucket filled with human waste and crawling with maggots Ko Aung, former Insein prisoner

Ko Aung, who was held at the British-built jail as a political prisoner for more than six years, said Insein was known as the "darkest hell-hole in Burma".

"When I was taken there, I had a hood over my head and tape on my eyes. I heard the guards shouting abuse at me and the sound of the prisoners in shackles.

"When I realised that I was at Insein, I cried underneath my hood, because it had such a horrendous reputation," he said.

The guards took Mr Aung to his cell - a concrete cubicle - about six feet by eight feet (2 metres by 2.5) where they removed his hood for the first time.

"I was immediately struck by the horrible stench. There was no toilet, just a slop bucket filled with human waste and crawling with maggots," he said.

"It was totally disgusting, the food was disgusting. Most of the prisoners have dysentery because of the conditions they are kept in. Many of them also have HIV."

Mr Aung was held in solitary confinement for three years because he complained about the conditions.

Torture

During this time he was only allowed out of his cell for 10 minutes a day. He was also tortured and beaten by the guards.

"They beat me in the frog position, spread-eagled on the floor," he said.

The UK Foreign Minister Mike O'Brien has said that he understood Aung San Suu Kyi was still in the same clothes she was wearing when she was arrested.

Mr Ko Aung said that a lack of clean clothes was part of the harsh treatment he endured.

"When I was in solitary confinement, I was not allowed to have a shower or wash. They refused to allow me to change my clothes, even though it was so hot. My whole body was covered in skin diseases," he said.

Intimidation tactic

Debbie Stothard, from the pressure group Altsean-Burma said that holding Ms Suu Kyi at Insein was a deliberate move to frighten Burmese activists.

"To put her in jail, even though it is not a conventional jail cell, would be designed to increase the anxiety and panic among the pro-democracy movement and also in the international community," she told the Agence France Presse news agency.

Ms Stothard also said that the decision to imprison her was part of an orchestrated move to deflect international attention from democratic reform in Burma, forcing them instead to focus on freeing Aung San Suu Kyi.

The Burmese Government has refused to set a date for her release.