FROM THE DVB NEWSROOM
State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi and President Win Myint have been granted partial pardons on Aug. 1, regime media reported. The two jailed leaders were arrested during the military coup on Feb. 1, 2021. Aung San Suu Kyi, 78, had five of her 19 convictions dropped, reducing her 33 year sentence to 27 years in prison. “She won’t be free from house arrest,” a source told Reuters on the condition of anonymity.
Win Myint, 71, had two out of eight convictions dropped. His total sentence will be reduced from 12 to eight years in prison. A total of 7,749 prisoners were released across Burma, including 22 members of Ethnic Armed Organizations (EAO), 72 individuals accused of belonging to “unlawful associations,” and 125 foreign nationals. The prisoner amnesty was granted to mark the Full Moon of Waso, or the start of Buddhist Lent, according to regime media. Some prisoners on death row had their sentences commuted to life imprisonment.
It is currently unknown whether political prisoners were included in the amnesty. Around 1,000 prisoners were expected to be released from Yangon’s Insein Prison. The military grants pardons to prisoners to commemorate major holidays on what it calls “humanitarian reasons.” The majority of the prisoners that were freed in previous amnesties have not been political prisoners arrested for opposing the 2021 military coup. At least 1,577 prisoners were freed to mark the Burmese New Year last April, but no political prisoners were among them. At least 24,123 have been arrested by the military since 2021 and 19,733 remain imprisoned, states the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP).
