Hundreds held for anti-coup protests freed

Hundreds of people imprisoned for demonstrating against last month’s coup in Myanmar were released Wednesday, a rare conciliatory gesture by the military that appeared aimed at placating the protest movement.

Witnesses outside Insein Prison in Yangon saw busloads of mostly young people, looking happy with some flashing the three-finger gesture of defiance adopted by protesters. Staterun TV said a total of 628 were freed.

Also Wednesday, Thein Zaw, a journalist for The

Associated Press who was arrested last month while covering an anti-coup protest, was released.

Myanmar’s security forces have cracked down violently on protests against a Feb. 1 coup that reversed a decade of progress toward democracy in the Southeast Asian country and ousted the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi. The independent Assistance Association for Political Prisoners says that at least 275 people have been killed in connection with the crackdown. Thousands have also been arrested.

Wednesday’s release was an unusual overture by the military, which has so far seemed impervious to both internal pressure from protests and outside pressure from sanctions. Demonstrators tried a new tactic Wednesday that they dubbed a silence strike, calling on people to stay home and businesses to close for the day.

The mass release came the same day that journalist Thein Zaw was also freed. Thein Zaw told the AP that the judge in his case announced during a hearing that all charges against him were dropped because he was doing his job at the time of his arrest.