At least 15 political prisoners have been freed from Burmese jails, activists say, following an announcement in state media that 514 detainees will be released.
A spokesman for the democracy movement Generation 88 told AFP those freed included eight dissidents from Rangoon’s notorious Insein prison, while the rest were from other parts of the country.
Nay Win, a member of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) party, was one of the political prisoners to walk free from the Yangon prison.
He said he was sentenced to seven years imprisonment in 2008 for defamation because of comments he made accusing judges of corruption.
“Our lives are destroyed, although we are still alive,” the 50-year-old told AFP at the NLD party headquarters in Rangoon.
“I thank (Mother Suu) for our release. I do not want to thank them,” he said, referring to the reformist government of former general Thein Sein.
FREE 28 Day Trial last Chance
Two foreign inmates – one Indian and one Chinese national – were also freed from Insein on Monday, Nay Win said.
Television news earlier reported that the president had granted “amnesty for a total of 514 prisoners” in a rare breaking news update.
The report, which said the release included “foreign prisoners from the prisons around the country”, comes a day before the Burmese leader is set to embark on a visit to China, followed by a trip to the United States, which has long called for the release of all jailed dissidents.
Burma has granted amnesty to hundreds of political prisoners as part of reforms that have caused a dramatic thaw in relations between the West and the long-isolated nation.
Estimates of the exact number of political detainees still locked up vary but Generation 88, which played a key part in a 1988 uprising against the former junta, has said around 300 activists still languish in jails around the country.
Thein Sein will visit China until September 22 and is then set to embark on a trip to the United States to attend a United Nations General Assembly on September 24.
His visit coincides with a high profile trip to the US by Suu Kyi, herself freed from years of house arrest in 2010.
The democracy champion, who is now an elected politician, used her long-awaited acceptance speech for the Nobel Peace Prize in Norway in June to call for the release of Burma’s remaining political prisoners, warning of the risk that “the unknown ones will be forgotten”.
Source: AFP