Myanmar’s ruling junta said it will free more than 6,000 prisoners in an Independence Day amnesty, a rare concession amid a sweeping post-coup crackdown and a tightly managed election widely dismissed by critics as a sham.
The National Defence and Security Council said junta chief Min Aung Hlaing pardoned 6,134 imprisoned Myanmar nationals. In a separate statement, authorities said 52 foreign prisoners would also be released and deported.
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The military has arrested thousands of protesters, activists and political figures since seizing power in February 2021, ending a brief democratic opening and plunging the country into civil war. Rights groups have documented widespread detentions, torture and death sentences, while independent media have been shuttered or forced underground.
Outside Yangon’s Insein prison — notorious among former inmates and rights groups for alleged abuse — hundreds waited for hours to see if their relatives’ names appeared on release lists, an AFP journalist observed. “I am waiting for my dad to be released. He was arrested and imprisoned for doing politics,” said one man, who declined to be named due to security concerns. “His sentence is about to end. I hope he will be released as soon as possible.”
The amnesty comes as the junta stages a phased, month-long vote it has touted as a path to “disciplined democracy.” Rights advocates and Western diplomats have condemned the process as an attempt to rebrand military rule and cement the army’s political dominance while opposition leaders remain jailed or barred.
Preliminary results from the first phase, published in state media, show the pro-military Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) with a commanding lead. According to official tallies, the USDP has won 87 of the 96 lower house seats announced so far — about 90% — while six ethnic minority parties have taken nine seats. Winners in six townships have yet to be declared. Two more voting phases are scheduled for Jan. 11 and Jan. 25.
The massively popular National League for Democracy (NLD), led by detained Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, was dissolved by the junta and did not appear on ballots. The military overturned the 2020 election, in which the NLD routed the USDP, alleging widespread fraud. International observers have said the fraud claims were unfounded.
The junta has said turnout in the first phase last month exceeded 50% of eligible voters, well below the roughly 70% participation reported in 2020. Communications blackouts, fighting in several regions and displacement have hindered both campaigning and access to polling sites, according to rights monitors and local media.
Thursday’s pardons follow a pre-election amnesty in November in which the junta said it would drop or reduce more than 3,000 sentences for people prosecuted under post-coup speech and assembly restrictions. A key aide to Suu Kyi was among those released then.
It was not immediately clear how many political prisoners are included in the latest release or when all those named will leave custody. Prisoner lists in previous amnesties have trickled out over days, and rights groups say political detainees are often excluded or freed only conditionally.
For families at Insein and other prisons across Myanmar, the amnesty offers a fragile hope. For the country’s political future, the spectacle of releases alongside a sweeping, tightly controlled vote underscores a familiar reality: the military remains firmly in charge, even as it seeks public legitimacy at home and abroad.
By Abdiwahab Ahmed
Axadle Times international–Monitoring.
