To mark the Buddhist New Year or Thingyan, the Myanmar military junta released more than 3000 prisoners on Monday, according to a statement by the military government.
The military-led Government jailed thousands of opponents and pro-democracy activists since it seized power in 2021 and brutally put down protests, drawing global condemnation. Shortly after the military takeover, the military-led government released around 23,000 prisoners.
However, the number of released prisoners in 2022 and this year are significantly low. Human rights organisations and several world leaders have repeatedly called on the junta to release all political prisoners. In previous amnesties, the junta freed political prisoners, but only a few tens of the thousands behind bars, while some have been re-arrested.
At least 17,460 people remain in detention and 3,240 have been killed by the junta, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, an activist group.
The amnesty is a “celebration of Myanmar’s New Year to bring joy for the people and address humanitarian concerns,” Lieutenant General Aung Lin Dwe, a state secretary of the junta, recently said.
Despite the coup, New Year celebrations had remained a joyous affair with people celebrating with playful water fights. This year, however, many streets are deserted in boycott following an airstrike on a village that reportedly killed more than 170 people. The prisoner amnesty, a common initiative in Myanmar on certain dates.
If the freed prisoners are found violating rules again then they will have to serve the remainder of their sentence with an additional penalty, the statement said.
The junta released 3,113 prisoners, including 98 foreigners, according to the statement. However, it didn’t specify if jailed journalists or anti-junta protestors were part of it. It has been reported that the Myanmar military only specified that among the foreigners to be released are five Sri Lankan citizens, without giving the rest of nationalities.
The military coup of Feb. 1, 2021 plunged Myanmar into a deep political, social and economic crisis and has opened a spiral of violence with new civilian militias that have worsened the guerrilla war the country has experienced for decades.
The United Nations said in March that more than 3,000 civilians have been killed, 1.3 million have had to flee their homes and 16,000 have become political prisoners since the coup. This includes the de facto leader of the ousted government Aung San Suu Kyi, ending a decade of democratic transition.
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