President Win Myint today pardoned more than 6,000 prisoners in a second round of releases, bringing the total number freed since the Thingyan festival to just under 16,500 amid promises for a third amnesty soon.
Those freed today included activists Lum Zawng and Zau Jat, who in December were jailed for six months and fined K500,000 kyat each for “defaming” the military during an anti-war protest in Myitkyina.
But dozens of others considered political prisoners remain behind bars, including Reuters reporters Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo.
No prisoners from Yangon’s Insein prison or Mandalay’s O Bo prisons – the country’s two largest jails – were included in today’s releases, said deputy director of the Department of Prisons, Min Tun Soe.
“Insein prison will be included in the next round. I don’t know the date… it won’t be too long,” he told Myanmar Now.
President’s spokesperson Zaw Htay told reporters in Naypyitaw that the inmates freed today were from institutions in Kachin, Kayar, Kayin, Sagaing, Tanintharyi, Bago, and Magway regions.
Most were convicted for minor drug offenses, he added. Their release will further fuel discontent among prisoners convicted for similar crimes who have been left inside.
Earlier this week inmates from the Mopalin Labor Camp and Shwe Bo prison in Sagaing region staged protests to signal their frustration at being left out of the first amnesty.
The next amnesty will include members of a number of ethnic armed groups that have sent letters to the president petitioning for their release, Zaw Htay added.
And although the Home Affairs ministry this week denied there were any political prisoners in Myanmar, Zaw Htay said the government has “talked about the prisoners whose sentences were related to political issues” and “will release them.”
