Myanmar’s military has announced it is releasing and deporting four foreigners as part of a prisoner amnesty to mark the country’s National Victory Day.
According to Al Jazeera, the military is releasing an Australian academic, a Japanese filmmaker, an ex-British diplomat and an American as part of a prisoner amnesty.
Myanmar’s state-run MRTV reported on Thursday that Australian Sean Turnell, Japan’s Toru Kubota, Briton Vicky Bowman and American Kyaw Htay Oo were among 5,774 prisoners who were being released.
Myanmar has been in political turmoil since last year’s coup, when the country’s generals arrested civilian leaders including Aung San Suu Kyi in early morning raids on February 1, 2021.
The power grab led to mass protests, which have evolved into an armed resistance to the military’s rule. Security forces have responded with brutal force, killing at least 2,465 people and detaining 16,323 people on political charges, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, a civil society group.
Of those arrested, 13,015 were still in detention as of Wednesday, the group said.
Turnell, 58, an associate professor in economics at Sydney’s Macquarie University who worked as an economic adviser to Aung San Suu Kyi, was arrested by security forces at a hotel in Yangon shortly after the military seized power in a coup in February 2021.
He was sentenced in September to three years in prison for violating the country’s official secrets and immigration laws.
Kubota, a 26-year-old Tokyo-based documentary filmmaker, was arrested on July 30 by plainclothes police in Yangon after taking images and videos last year of a small flash protest against the military takeover.
He was convicted last month by the prison court of incitement for participating in the protest and other charges and sentenced to 10 years in prison.
Bowman, 56, a former United Kingdom ambassador to Myanmar, was arrested with her husband, a Myanmar national, in Yangon in August.
She was given a one-year prison term in September for failing to register her residence.
A senior military officer told the AFP news agency that Bowman’s husband, Htein Lin, will also be released.
Kyaw Htay Oo, a naturalized American, was meanwhile arrested in September, 2021 on terrorism charges and had been in custody ever since.
The British embassy in Yangon said Bowman had not yet been released from prison, while a source at Japan’s embassy told the AFP news agency that they had been informed “Kubota will be released today”.
There was no immediate comment from Australia or the United States.
Myanmar Now, an independent news outlet, cited the military council as saying the pardons were granted because it was Myanmar’s National Day.
It said those set to be released also included 11 Myanmar celebrities.
Analysts say Myanmar’s military may be responding to pressure from Southeast Asian heads of government, who condemned last week the generals’s lack of progress on a peace plan agreed last year.
Myanmar Now, an independent news outlet, cited the military council as saying the pardons were granted because it was Myanmar’s National Day.
It said those set to be released also included 11 Myanmar celebrities.
Analysts say Myanmar’s military may be responding to pressure from Southeast Asian heads of government, who condemned last week the generals’s lack of progress on a peace plan agreed last year.
At a summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), leaders called for measurable progress on the Five Point Consensus or risk being barred from the bloc’s meetings. They also agreed on a need for “concrete, practical and measurable indicators with a specific timeline”.
Zachary Abuza, an expert on Southeast Asian politics, said Myanmar’s “junta fears a harder line” from ASEAN, including concerns that members of the bloc may support Malaysia’s calls to reject an election the generals plan to hold next year.
The reported release of the four foreigners “is a preemptive move to encourage engagement,” tweeted the professor at the National War College in Washington, DC.
News Agencies/Al Jazeera