Release of political prisoners underway
YANGON: Myanmar’s military government has freed hundreds of political prisoners from the notorious Insein prison, including Aung San Suu Kyi’s party spokesman and a famous comedian Zarganar, local media reported yesterday.
Minutes after military ruler Min Aung Hlaing’s speech on Monday, state television announced more than 5,600 people arrested or wanted over their roles in anti-coup protests would be freed in an amnesty on humanitarian grounds.
The release was described by some activists as a ploy by the ruling military to try to rebuild its international reputation after the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) took the rare step of excluding the junta chief from its summit.
UN Special Rapporteur Tom Andrews on Twitter welcomed the release but said it was “outrageous” that they were detained in the first place. “The junta is releasing political prisoners in Myanmar not because of a change of heart, but because of pressure,” he said.
The junta has released prisoners several times since the February coup.
Asean decided to invite a nonpolitical representative to its Oct 26-28 summit, in an unprecedented snub to the military leaders behind the coup against Aung San Suu Kyi’s elected government.
“They came to me today and said they will take me home, that’s all,” Monywa Aung Shin, a spokesman for Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) party, said late on Monday on his way home from prison. He was arrested on Feb 1 and had spent eight months in prison.
Photos and videos posted on social media showed detainees reunited with weeping family members. Other images showed a succession of buses leaving the rear entrance of the jail, with passengers leaning from windows and waving at crowds gathered outside.
More political prisoners including parliamentarians and journalists were freed on Monday in other towns including Mandalay, Lashio, Meiktila and Myeik. However, 11 out of 38 people released from Meiktila prison in central Myanmar were arrested again according to local media Democratic Voice of Burma.