Myanmar has handed out presidential pardons to almost 7,000 state detainees, including 210 foreigners, held in prisons across the country, including the notorious Insein Prison in the former capital of Yangon. The amnesty by President Thein Sein, who came to power in 2011, was timed to coincide with the Asalha Puja Buddhist holiday.
Chinese loggers look out from a bus after being freed. From Xinhua
A statement from the country’s Information Ministry on 30 July said 6,966 prisoners would be freed “on humanitarian grounds and in view of national reconciliation.” (Asian Correspondent)
The move was announced days before a scheduled visit by Yanghee Lee, the United Nations special rapporteur on Myanmar. The amnesty also comes ahead of a general election in November. Myanmar’s government does not release official lists of pardoned prisoners, so identifying those freed is usually done through information from the prisoners themselves and their families.
It was unclear whether pro-democracy activists were among those freed, said U Bo Kyi, joint secretary of the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, which monitors prisoners of conscience: “Many prisoners will be released, but I’m not sure what kind of prisoners.” (South China Morning Post)
Journalist Min Wa Than, center, is greeted by relatives after being released from prison.
From The New York Times
A representative for the Myanmar weekly Bi Mon Te Nay said that four of its journalists and the journal’s publisher had been freed after almost a year in jail for publishing articles that the government deemed defamatory. The Assistance Association for Political Prisoners said that 13 of those released were prisoners of conscience, although it was still checking names to confirm whether more were included.
A senior prison official, who requested anonymity, said former top members of the country’s powerful military intelligence, many of whom were purged under the country’s former junta, were among those released. Among them were Than Tun, a former brigadier general who served as a liaison officer between the former military government and Aung San Suu Kyi, the pro-democracy leader who spent 15 years under house arrest, and Tin Htut, son-in-law of the former prime minister and head of military intelligence Khin Nyunt.
Among the foreigners covered by the amnesty were 155 Chinese nationals jailed just last week for illegal logging. The Chinese nationals were arrested in Kachin State in January in a crackdown on Myanmar’s lucrative illegal logging and timber trade. More than 400 vehicles and 1,600 logs were seized during the raid, state media reported at the time. China had lodged a diplomatic protest about the verdict against those arrested, 153 of whom received life sentences. Myanmar’s porous border with China has long been rife with illegal trade in timber and jade.
Released prisoners leave Insein Prison in Yangon. From Al Jazeera
U Mong Gwang, a liaison officer with the Kachin Independence Organization, which controls part of the state, said of the decision to free the loggers: “People in the town are surprised at the news. They were just sentenced eight days ago.” (The New York Times)
Asalha Puja, sometimes known as Dharma Day, falls on the first full moon of the eighth lunar month (the third month in Myanmar). The day marks the occasion of the Buddha's first teaching in the Deer Park in Sarnath to five ascetics 2,500 years ago, which led to the founding of the monastic sangha. In the teaching “Setting the Wheel of Dharma in Motion,” the Buddha first spelled out the Four Noble Truths and the Noble Eightfold Path.
Theravada Buddhists make up about 89 per cent of Myanmar’s population, which has the highest proportion of monks of any Buddhist country, numbering more than 400,000, according to US government data.