Burma: 814 prisoners granted by junta

12 Feb 2022 5:27 am GMT+0000 Date Time

One year after submitting Aung San Suu Kyi and hardly repressed the protest, the Burmese military junta makes a mine to look for appeasement.

Le Monde with AFP

In Burma, the military junta announced on Saturday, February 12 that it was going to release more than 800 prisoners as part of an amnesty on the “Union Day”. According to a “grace ordinance in commemoration of the Diamond Jubilee of the Union”, which falls on Saturday, 814 prisoners will be released, announced in a statement the leader of the Min Aung Hlaing.

This amnesty concerns mainly prisoners from Rangoun, said the France Presse Agency (AFP) the spokesman of the Zaw Min Tun, without specifying if the Australian academic Sean Turnell would be part of those detainees released.

Bloody repression

Professor of Economics, Mr. Turnell worked as a counselor of the Civil Officer Aung San Suu Kyi when he was arrested in February 2021, a few days after the military coup. It was charged with violation of the Burma Secrets Act and risks a maximum fourteen years of prison.

The junta had released nearly 23,000 inmates last year for the “day of the Union”, the organizations for the defense of rights fearing at the time whether it is to make room in the prisons to lock the opponents and sow chaos in the population.

The coup of the 1 February 2021 triggered great demonstrations and a bloody military repression, with more than 1,500 civilians killed and nearly 12,000 arrests, according to a local group of Monitoring.

/Media reports.