GENEVA, Switzerland – Among greater than 7,000 prisoners granted amnesty by Myanmar’s junta this week had been about 300 political prisoners, the United Nations mentioned Friday.
The army junta, which seized energy practically two years in the past, introduced on Wednesday it will free 7,012 prisoners to mark the seventy fifth anniversary of Myanmar gaining independence.
It didn’t specify whether or not the amnesty coated these jailed as a part of its brutal crackdown on dissent, however the UN rights workplace mentioned political prisoners had been amongst these launched.
“It’s about 300 who were political prisoners,” spokesman Jeremy Laurence informed reporters, citing “credible sources”.
He mentioned that up to now, 195 of these instances had been verified.
Local monitoring group AAPP additionally mentioned it understood 300 political prisoners had been launched. It had recognized 223 of them and was working to confirm different instances.
“The release of political prisoners in Myanmar is not only a relief to those unfairly detained, but also their families,” Laurence mentioned.
While welcoming the amnesty, Laurence identified that “on the very day that these political prisoners were released, another 22 were detained.
“So the state of affairs continues.”
And many of the people being detained for opposing military rule, he said, “have been subjected to torture and ill-treatment”.
“Such detentions are usually not solely supposed to silence the junta’s critics, however are additionally designed to instill concern.”
Nearly 17,000 people have been arrested since the military coup in February 2021, and over 13,000 remain in detention, Laurence said, adding that the UN rights chief Volker Turk was preparing a report about the situation in Myanmar.
“The pathway out of Myanmar’s disaster just isn’t by locking folks up, it’s by permitting them to freely, totally and successfully take part in political life,” he mentioned. — Agence France-Presse
