Burma's opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi is to be awarded the freedom of Scotland's largest city.

Bob Winter, the Lord Provost of Glasgow, will propose the honour for the pro-democracy campaigner, who has been under house arrest for prolonged periods over the past 17 years, at a meeting of the full council on Thursday.

It is expected to win the support of all 79 cross-party councillors.

The symbolic gesture has echoes of the move in 1981 to bestow the Freedom of Glasgow on Nelson Mandela while he was incarcerated in Roben Island by South Africa's apartheid regime. He collected the honour in person in 1993.

In his motion the Lord Provost states: "The council resolves to confer the Freedom of the City on Aung San Suu Kyi, the democratically elected leader of Burma and head of the National League for Democracy (NLD).

"The Freedom is in recognition of her achievements in the service of democracy, which have merited the award of the Nobel Peace Prize, and signifies the council's support for her immediate release and the restoration of democratic government in Burma."

Aung San Suu Kyi was first put under house arrest by the military junta after her NLD won an election in 1990.

Last week, on the anniversary of her 12th year in detention, campaigners announced demonstrations in 12 cities to protest against her continuing house arrest.

The following day a senior member of the military junta, which has clamped down on recent pro-democracy protests started by Buddhist monks, announced talks with Suu Kyi in the near future.