Any hope that the July 1995 release of opposition leader and Nobel laureate Daw Aung San Suu Kyi might be a sign of human rights reforms by the ruling State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC) government were destroyed during 1996 as political arrests and repression dramatically increased and forced labor, forced relocations, and arbitrary arrests continued to be the daily reality for millions of ordinary Burmese. The turn for the worse received little censure from Burma's neighbors, who instead took the first step towards granting the country full membership in the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) and welcomed SLORC as a member of the Asian Regional Forum, a security body.