Jan 4 (Reuters) – Myanmar’s military government will release 6,186 prisoners under an amnesty marking Independence Day, state media said on Saturday, a week after a multi-stage general election began in the impoverished Southeast Asian nation.
The amnesty, which includes 52 foreigners, is a humanitarian gesture that takes into consideration the public’s peace of mind, state-run MRTV said.
The junta also reduced sentences by one-sixth nationwide, excluding for those convicted of serious crimes such as murder, rape, terrorism, corruption and arms- or drug-related offences.
It was not immediately clear whether any political detainees would be freed.
Myanmar has been in turmoil since 2021, when the military toppled the elected civilian government of Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi and violently suppressed pro-democracy protests, sparking a nationwide armed rebellion.
Suu Kyi is serving 27 years in prison after being detained in the coup, months after her National League for Democracy won a landslide and was later dissolved.
More than 30,000 people have been detained on political charges since the coup, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, a human rights group.
Newly formed resistance groups and long-established ethnic armies are fighting the military across much of the country, forcing an estimated 3.6 million people from their homes.
The first round of the election, Myanmar’s first since 2020, was held last weekend in a vote condemned by opposition groups, the U.N. and some Western governments as a sham, given that anti-junta political parties are out of the running and it is illegal to criticise the polls.
(Reporting by Reuters Staff; Editing by William Mallard)
