YANGON: Myanmar\u2019s military government said Thursday it will release nearly 5,000 prisoners in an amnesty to mark the country\u2019s new year festivities.
\nCivil rights groups say the junta has arrested thousands of protesters and activists since its 2021 coup cut short Myanmar\u2019s experiment with democracy and plunged the nation into a multi-sided civil war.
\nAmnesties are regularly announced to commemorate national holidays or Buddhist festivals, but most high-profile political prisoners including deposed civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi remain detained.
\nA junta statement said 4,893 prisoners will be pardoned \u201cto participate in the state-building process, for peace of mind of people and on compassionate grounds.\u201d
\nTo convey the \u201cloving kindness of the state,\u201d the junta also said other prisoners would have their sentences reduced by one-sixth, except for those who had committed serious offenses.
\nThe offenses include unlawful association and terrorism, as well as murder and rape.
\nThe junta said 13 foreign nationals would also be pardoned and deported, without giving details of their identities or crimes.
\nEarly on Thursday morning an AFP journalist saw crowds of families gathered outside Yangon\u2019s Insein prison, prepared to meet those freed.
\nThe amnesty announcement was made as junta chief Min Aung Hlaing was reportedly due to make a rare foreign trip to Bangkok to meet Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, who is chairing the 10-country ASEAN bloc this year.
\nThe Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has in the past barred junta officials from its summits over lack of progress on a peace plan.
\nBut Anwar said he would meet Min Aung Hlaing Thursday to discuss the safety of Malaysian humanitarian teams dispatched to Myanmar following last month\u2019s magnitude-7.7 earthquake.
\nThe junta has not confirmed the meeting.
\nMyanmar\u2019s ongoing \u201cThingyan\u201d water festival typically marks the country\u2019s new year with water-splashing rituals representing cleansing and renewal.
\nBut celebrations have been muted following the March 28 tremor in the country\u2019s central belt, which has killed 3,725 according to the latest official toll.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
YANGON: Myanmar\u2019s military government said Thursday it will release nearly 5,000 prisoners in an amnesty to mark the country\u2019s new year festivities. Civil rights groups say the junta has arrested thousands of protesters and activists since its 2021 coup cut short Myanmar\u2019s experiment with democracy and plunged the nation into a multi-sided civil war. Amnesties …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":79803,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-79783","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79783","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=79783"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79783\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":79804,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79783\/revisions\/79804"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/79803"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=79783"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=79783"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=79783"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}