Myanmar frees more than 3,000 prisoners on the occasion of the Burmese New Year

17 Apr. (EUROPE PRESS) –

The Burmese authorities have announced on Monday a massive release of more than 3,000 prisoners, including a hundred foreigners, on the occasion of the Burmese New Year celebration.

The Burma Military Council has announced that 3,015 prisoners from various prisons have been pardoned, 98 of them foreigners, according to the news portal Mizzima News.

The military junta has indicated that the sentences have been reduced on the condition that those who have been pardoned continue to serve their current punishment and a new one if they commit another crime.

According to the Association for Attention to Political Prisoners (AAPP), as of April 12, after the February 2021 coup, there have been a total of 21,348 arrests, of which 17,460 people are still in custody, and more than 3,200 people have died victims of the repression.

The Government of National Unity, Burmese’s democratic authorities in exile, has indicated that the Burmese Army has committed more than 30 massacres of civilians across the country since the Army’s takeover, while the United Nations High Commissioner United for Human Rights, Volker Türk, denounced at the beginning of March the “impunity” with which the Burmese military junta has acted for two years, which he accused of creating a “perpetual” political and humanitarian crisis.