Burma’s military junta announced Wednesday that it will release more than 7,000 prisoners to mark the 75th anniversary of the country’s independence, after local media pointed to the release of several politicians detained in the wake of the February 2021 coup.
The State Planning and Administration Council has issued a decree that 7,012 prisoners will be released in the coming hours, with the warning that they will have to serve the remainder of their sentence if they are re-arrested for any crime or misdemeanor, as reported by Burma’s state-run television network MRTV.
According to the Burmese news portal Mizzima News, Zara Aung Ko, who was Minister of Religion and Culture during the government of the country’s de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi, and Zan Myint Aung, who was a member of the municipal committee of the Rangoon region, were released earlier in the day.
Aung Ko was sentenced in March 2022 to twelve years in prison for corruption, while Myint Aung was sentenced in December 2021 to three years in prison for calling for the dissolution of the military junta set up after the coup d’état, perpetrated by the army to annul the results of the November 2020 general election, in which the National League for Democracy (NLD) won the parliamentary majority.
The uprising was followed by a harsh crackdown on opponents, activists and protesters that has so far resulted in nearly 2,700 deaths and more than 16,800 detainees – including more than 13,350 who remain in custody – according to data published by the Association for the Assistance of Political Prisoners (AAPP) through its Twitter account.
The initial protests against the coup have led to the formation of armed resistance groups and the reinforcement of ethnic militias already present in the country before the coup, which has caused an upsurge in fighting in several parts of the country, especially in the north.
In this context, at least 42 military and pro-government militiamen have been killed in attacks carried out during the last days by the Popular Defense Forces (PDF), including about 30 in an attack perpetrated on Tuesday against a military camp in the region of Sagaing, according to the Burmese newspaper ‘The Irrawaddy’.
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)
