Military regime back government is claiming to release political prisoners soon. Myanmar’s state-controlled television on Tuesday announced an amnesty for more than 6,300 prisoners, but did not say whether political detainees would be included.
The announcement came just hours after a government-appointed human rights panel called for a pardon for the country’s “prisoners of conscience”, who are estimated by rights groups to number about 2,000.
Burma’s newly established human rights body has urged the country’s president to release “prisoners of conscience,” in a move seen as confirming recent reports that the government is planning to free a significant number of political prisoners.
In an open letter published in the state-run newspaper The New Light of Myanmar on Tuesday, the chairman of the Myanmar National Human Rights Commission, Win Mra, said that President Thein Sein should release prisoners who don’t pose “a threat to the stability of state and public tranquility” as “a reflection of his magnanimity.”
The move comes just days after the speaker of Burma’s Lower House of Parliament, Shwe Mann, told the visiting Norwegian deputy foreign minister, Espen Barth Eide, in Naypyidaw on Friday that political prisoners will be released “within a few days,” according to a report by NRK, Norway’s public service broadcaster.
There are estimated to be around 2,000 political activists inside Burma’s prisons, including monks, nuns, journalists and bloggers. Their release is a key demand of the international community, with the US and EU saying that sanctions imposed in response to human rights abuses won’t be lifted until this condition is met.
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