YANGON - Myanmar reduced ousted civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s 33-year prison sentence by six years in a partial pardon on Tuesday, as the junta struggles to quell bloody resistance to its rule.

Junta spokesman Zaw Min Tun told the Eleven Media Group that the pardon was part of an amnesty under which more than 7,000 prisoners were freed across Myanmar.

Myanmar has been in the throes of bloody turmoil since early 2021, when the military overthrew Ms Suu Kyi’s elected government and unleashed a crackdown on opponents of military rule that saw thousands jailed or killed.

On Monday, the junta postponed an election promised by August and extended a state of emergency for another six months, which critics say would prolong the crisis.

Ms Suu Kyi, who last week moved from prison to house arrest in the capital Naypyitaw, has been in detention since the military coup in early 2021.

The military’s State Administration Council also pardoned former president Win Myint, who was arrested at the same time as Ms Suu Kyi after the 2021 coup, on some of the charges for which he was convicted and jailed 173 years, resulting in a reduction of four years in his jail term, the junta spokesman was quoted as saying.

Ms Suu Kyi has denied all of the charges for which she was convicted, ranging from incitement to election fraud to corruption, and has been appealing against them.

An informed source said both Ms Suu Kyi and Mr Win Myint would remain in detention.

“She won’t be free from house arrest,” said the source, who declined to be identified due to the sensitivity of the issue.

The convictions for which she was pardoned were minor ones, including breaching a natural disaster mitigation law in violating Covid-19 rules while election campaigning, the source said.

Ms Suu Kyi, 78, the daughter of Myanmar’s independence hero, was first put under house arrest in 1989 after huge protests against decades of military rule.

In 1991, she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for campaigning for democracy, and was fully released from house arrest only in 2010.

She swept a 2015 election, held as part of tentative military reforms, and her party won the next election in November 2020.

But the military complained of election fraud after the 2020 vote and said it had to take power in early 2021 to ensure that the complaints were investigated. Ms Suu Kyi’s party rejected the accusations of election fraud.

Many governments, particularly in the West, have called for the unconditional release of Ms Suu Kyi and thousands of others detained in a bloody crackdown that the junta unleashed against pro-democracy protesters in the wake of the coup.

Thailand’s foreign minister said in June he met Ms Suu Kyi in a private meeting, the first foreign official to be granted access to her since her detention.

Mr Don Pramudwinai said she was in good health and supported dialogue to help resolve her country’s crisis.

One diplomatic source described the pardons as a “cosmetic move”.

“This is a signal to the international community – without doing anything substantive,” said the source, who declined to be identified.

A spokesman for the shadow National Unity Government formed by Ms Suu Kyi’s supporters and other opponents of the military said the partial pardons for Ms Suu Kyi and Mr Win Myint showed the military was feeling pressure, as not only Western countries but also neighbours in South-east Asia have called for a resolution of Myanmar’s crisis.

“This is just a political trick... aimed at relieving pressure,” said the spokesman, Mr Kyaw Zaw. “They must be released unconditionally since they were arbitrarily detained. All political prisoners must be released.” REUTERS