(Rangoon) The military junta in Burma announced on Saturday that it would release more than 800 prisoners as part of an amnesty on the occasion of Union Day.
Posted at 10:40 p.m.
According to a “pardon order in commemoration of the Diamond Jubilee of Union Day”, which falls on Saturday, 814 prisoners will be released, junta leader Min Aung Hlaing said in a statement.
This amnesty mainly concerns prisoners from Yangon, junta spokesman Zaw Min Tun told AFP, without specifying whether or not Australian academic Sean Turnell would be among those released.
An economics professor, Mr Turnell was working as an adviser to civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi when he was arrested in February 2021, days after the military coup.
He was charged with violating Burma’s Official Secrets Act and faces a maximum sentence of 14 years in prison.
The junta released nearly 23,000 detainees last year for Union Day, with rights organizations fearing at the time that it was to make room in prisons to lock up opponents and sow chaos in the population.
The coup of 1er February 2021 sparked large protests and a bloody military crackdown, with more than 1,500 civilians killed and nearly 12,000 arrested, according to a local watchdog group.