Myanmar junta to release nearly 6,000 prisoners in annual amnesty
Sign up now: Get ST's newsletters delivered to your inbox
The junta has said it will hold elections in 2025, but the plan has been widely condemned by opposition groups as a sham.
PHOTO: EPA-EFE
Follow topic:
YANGON - Myanmar’s junta government on Jan 4 said it will release almost 6,000 prisoners as part of an annual amnesty to mark the country’s Independence Day.
The military has arrested thousands of protesters and activists since its February 2021 coup
More than 5,800 prisoners – including 180 foreigners – will be freed, the junta said in a statement on Jan 4, when the country marked 77 years of independence from British colonial rule.
It did not give details of what the prisoners had been convicted of or the nationalities of the foreign detainees who were set to be deported on release.
The military said it ordered the pardons “on humanitarian and compassionate grounds”. The junta also announced that 144 people who had been sentenced to life in prison would have their sentences commuted to 15 years.
Myanmar frequently grants amnesty to thousands of prisoners to commemorate holidays or Buddhist festivals. In 2023, the junta announced the release of more than 9,000 prisoners to mark Independence Day.
The annual Independence Day ceremony held in the heavily guarded capital Naypyitaw on the morning of Jan 4 saw around 500 government and military attendees.
A speech by the junta chief, General Min Aung Hlaing, who was not present at the event, was delivered by deputy army chief Soe Win.
He reiterated the junta’s call to dozens of ethnic minority armed groups that have been fighting the junta for the last four years to put down arms and “resolve the political issue through peaceful means”.
He repeated a military pledge to hold delayed democratic elections and called for national unity. AFP
