Myanmar’s military pardons 6,134 nationals and 52 foreigners in an annual release, as families wait outside a notorious Yangon prison for their loved ones.
YANGON: Myanmar’s junta said it would release more than 6,000 prisoners as part of an annual amnesty to mark the country’s independence day.
Junta chief Min Aung Hlaing pardoned 6,134 imprisoned Myanmar nationals, the National Defence and Security Council said in a statement.
Fifty-two foreign prisoners were also to be released and deported, according to a separate announcement.
The yearly amnesty comes as the country marks 78 years of independence from British colonial rule.
Hundreds of people waited for the release of their family members outside Yangon’s Insein prison on Sunday.
“I am waiting for my dad to be released. He was arrested and imprisoned for doing politics,” said one man outside the prison, which is notorious for alleged brutal rights abuses.
The release comes a week after the junta opened voting in a phased month-long election.
Rights advocates and Western diplomats have condemned the poll as a sham and a rebranding of martial rule.
The pro-military Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) has a decisive lead in the first phase of voting.
Official results published in state media show the USDP has won 87 of the 96 lower house seats announced so far.
Six ethnic minority parties picked up nine seats, with results from six townships still pending.
The massively popular but dissolved National League for Democracy (NLD) of Aung San Suu Kyi did not appear on ballots.
The military overturned the results of the last poll in 2020 after the NLD defeated the USDP by a landslide.
The junta has said turnout in the first phase last month exceeded 50% of eligible voters.
A key aide to Aung San Suu Kyi was among hundreds of prisoners freed by the junta in a pre-election amnesty in November.
