YANGON/BANGKOK (dpa): Myanmar's military junta has granted amnesty to 5,864 prisoners across the country, including around 600 political detainees, a spokesman has announced.
The amnesty was awarded as part of the country's 77th Independence Day celebrations, Major General Zaw Min Tun said.
He said the political prisoners had been charged under Section 505 of the legal system, which the regime amended in 2021 to criminalize "fake news" and "incitement" against the military.
Among the released prisoners is Khet Aung, the former chief minister of Kachin state under the National League for Democracy government, Zaw Min Tun added.
However, Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi, who was ousted from power in the military coup in February 2021 and sentenced to a long prison term in 2022, was not covered by the amnesty.
The announcement stated that prisoners convicted of serious offences such as murder, rape and narcotics violations would not be eligible for amnesty.
However, for prisoners convicted of other offences, six months of their sentences would be commuted.
In addition, around 144 individuals sentenced to life imprisonment had their sentences reduced to 15 years, Zaw Min Tun said.
He also said that 180 foreign prisoners, including Thai and Indonesian nationals, had been pardoned and deported.
According to Zaw Min Tun, most of the Thai nationals included were detained in Tachileik for gambling-related cases, while the Indonesian nationals were fishermen detained for operating in Myanmar's territorial waters.
Since the coup in 2021, Myanmar has descended into chaos and civil war. Various rebel groups are fighting against the military, with some achieving major successes. - dpa
