Myanmar will release more than 5,000 people jailed for protesting the military coup in February, the ruling junta leader said on Monday.
A total of 5,636 prisoners will be pardoned and released before the Buddhist festival of Thadingyut, which begins on Tuesday, said General Min Aung Hlaing, days after being excluded from the upcoming ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) summit. ).
The military putsch of 1er Last February ended a decade-long democratic parenthesis in the country.
Since then, the army has carried out a bloody crackdown with more than 1,100 civilians killed and some 8,000 arrests, according to a local NGO, the Association for Assistance to Political Prisoners (AAPP), which reports cases of torture, rape and abuse. extrajudicial executions. She figures that more than 7,300 people are still in detention.
The junta leader gave no details of who will be released and prison authorities did not respond to AFP’s requests for comment.
The independent news site Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB) said three of its journalists, all detained for about six months, had been released.
At the end of June, the authorities freed more than 2,000 coup opponents held in various prisons, including local journalists arrested for criticizing the bloody crackdown by the junta.
Among those still detained is the media editor Myanmar border, the American Danny Fenster, who has been in Insein prison in Rangoon since May 24.
A “distraction technique” say NGOs
After the junta’s announcement, dozens of people came to Insein prison, hoping for the release of relatives. In the crowd, Mya Nu would like to find her daughter arrested in April. “I haven’t been able to see her since,” she told AFP. It is only through her lawyer that I know that she is in good health. “
More than 1,300 of those due for release will be released on condition that they sign a document promising that they will not reoffend, Gen. Min Aung Hlaing said.
It is for them “fundamentally a form of conditional release that involves constant and threatening surveillance,” said analyst David Mathieson, a specialist in Myanmar. “This does not absolve the State Board (as the junta calls itself) from nine months of extreme violence. “
For its part, the AAPP called the measure a “distraction technique” aimed at foreign governments, saying in a press release on Twitter that “the intention is not to relax the repression”.
Myanmar set aside by ASEAN
The new decision to release prisoners comes after ASEAN excluded Min Aung Hlaing from its next summit on Friday due to the military government’s handling of the crisis. The bloc’s foreign ministers agreed that a Myanmar “non-political representative” would be invited in his place at the summit, scheduled for October 26-28.
The organization, which brings together 10 Southeast Asian countries (including Myanmar), took this exceptional step after the junta rejected requests for a special representative to be sent to engage “with all stakeholders. ”, Including the former civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi.
Overthrown by the army in February, 76-year-old Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi is facing a multitude of legal proceedings that could earn her many years of imprisonment.
ASEAN reported “insufficient progress” in implementing a five-point plan adopted in April that was to help restore dialogue in Myanmar and facilitate the arrival of humanitarian aid. The Myanmar junta had criticized the decision, accusing ASEAN of having broken the rule of non-interference in the domestic politics of its member states.
Last week, Aung San’s senior lawyer Suu Kyi said the junta had banned him from speaking to journalists, diplomats and international organizations.
The defense team of the former Myanmar leader was the sole source of information on her trial, which is being held behind closed doors. Aung San Suu Kyi is called to testify for the first time on October 26.