Bangkok, Apr 17:
More than 4,500 prisoners in Myanmar have been granted amnesty, and others have had their sentences reduced under a pardon order by President Min Aung Hlaing to mark the traditional new year, state-run media reported on Friday.
The identities of those being released were not immediately available. Relatives and friends of prisoners waited outside the main gate at Insein Prison, in the northern outskirts of Yangon, since morning.
There was no sign that former leader Aung San Suu Kyi would be freed or if the pardon would include the thousands of political detainees imprisoned for opposing military rule.
The amnesty comes a week after Min Aung Hlaing was sworn into office following an election that critics say was neither free nor fair and was orchestrated to keep the military’s iron grip on power.
In his inauguration speech, he said his government would implement amnesties that contribute to social reconciliation, justice and peace and support the country’s overall development.
State-run MRTV television reported that 4,335 prisoners were pardoned, and nearly 180 foreigners would also be released and deported.
If the freed prisoners reoffend, they will have to serve the rest of their original sentences in addition to any new sentence, according to the terms of their release. A separate report said death sentences were commuted to life imprisonment, life sentences were reduced to 40 years and prison terms of less than 40 years were cut by one-sixth.
Under that measure, Suu Kyi’s 27-year sentence would be reduced by 4 1/2 years.
Prisoner releases are common on holidays and other significant occasions in Myanmar.
Since the 2021 army takeover, nearly 8,000 civilians have been killed, and some 22,170 political detainees, including Suu Kyi, remain jailed, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, a rights monitoring group. Total deaths in the ongoing conflict are estimated to be much higher.
Many political detainees have been held on incitement charges, a law widely used to arrest critics of the government or military and punishable by up to three years in prison. Others have been prosecuted under a counterterrorism law that carries a potential death penalty and has been used to target political and armed opponents, journalists and other dissenters.
The army takeover was met with massive nonviolent resistance, which has since become a civil war.