SINGAPORE—Myanmar’s military junta said it will free thousands of prisoners in a mass amnesty, including several foreign nationals whose governments had lobbied for their release.
Junta spokesman
Zaw Min Tun
said on Thursday that the amnesty showed “respect for humanitarian and diplomatic relations” on the country’s National Victory Day, a holiday celebrating its independence from British colonial rule. Among those freed were former British Ambassador Vicky Bowman, Australian economist
Sean Turnell,
U.S. citizen Kyaw Htay Oo and Japanese filmmaker Toru Kubota, he said.
The Southeast Asian nation frequently marks public holidays with mass pardons, often releasing a handful of detainees viewed by human-rights groups as political prisoners along with large numbers of mostly petty criminals. The spokesman said 5,774 prisoners would be freed, including more than 700 who were arrested after the military seized power in a coup last year. The foreigners released will be deported, he said.
More than 16,000 people have been arrested and over 2,400 have been killed since the coup, according to the local monitoring group Assistance Association for Political Prisoners. The arrests swept up politicians including deposed civilian leader
Aung San Suu Kyi,
political activists, artists, journalists and others seen as critical of the junta. Ms. Suu Kyi has been sentenced to 26 years in prison on various charges, and still faces more that could lengthen her term.
The prisoner release is unlikely to improve Myanmar’s relations with the West, which frayed after the coup derailed the country’s decadelong transition to democracy. Governments including the U.S. and the U.K. imposed sanctions against Myanmar’s army leaders and military-linked businesses. Many foreign firms have left amid concerns about financial risks and physical security, as resistance to the coup ignited a nationwide armed rebellion.
Ms. Bowman, the former U.K. envoy, was arrested along with her husband, Htein Lin, a Myanmar national, in August on allegations that she violated immigration law by residing at an address that was different from the one on her official documents. Her husband was accused of abetting her, and they were each sentenced to a year in prison in early September. Both were…
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