‘Myanmar to release hundreds of political prisoners’

YANGON: Aung San Suu Kyi vowed on Thursday to press for the release of political prisoners and student activists in Myanmar, hinting that a mass amnesty may be imminent, a week after her government took power.

In her first statement since assuming a broadly defined role as state counsellor, Aung San Suu Kyi said: ‘I am going to try É for the immediate release of political prisoners, political activists and students facing trial related to politics.’ She did not provide a specific timeline.

The routine jailing of dissidents by the former junta stirred international outcry and support for the pro-democracy movement. Aung San Suu Kyi herself spent 15 years under house arrest, and many current National League for Democracy MPs served time in prison.

The quasi-civilian government that replaced the junta in 2011 freed hundreds of political detainees but also oversaw the detention of scores of others, particularly activists involved in land and education protests.

According to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, 90 political prisoners were in jail and more than 400 activists were facing trial as of February. The vast majority were arrested before last November’s elections, which Aung San Suu Kyi’s NLD won in a landslide.

Among those held are 40 students facing charges including unlawful assembly and rioting over education reform protests that were violently broken up by police in the central town of Letpadan in March 2015. Another 30 or so students are on bail but facing similar charges.

Aung San Suu Kyi is barred from the presidency by the junta-era constitution and has anointed her schoolfriend and close aide Htin Kyaw as president to act as her effective proxy. That means she does not have the direct power to order an amnesty.

The role of state counsellor allows her to liaise between the executive and legislative branches. The position was specially crafted for her by NLD MPs and is expected to help her live up to a pre-election vow to rule above the president.The 70-year-old Suu Kyi, daughter of the founder of the modern Myanmar army who negotiated the nation’s independence from the British empire, leads the National League for Democracy party. The NLD won by a landslide in November in the country’s first free election in decades.

President Obama phoned Suu Kyi on Wednesday and praised her “determined efforts, over the course of many years and at great personal cost, to achieve a peaceful transfer of power and advance national reconciliation,” according to the White House. She is a recipient of the Congressional Gold Medal and the US Presidential Medal of Freedom.