At least two Myanmar dissidents were among thousands of prisoners freed yesterday after the military government announced it had begun releasing more than 5,000 detainees in a third mass release in less than a month, relatives and officials said.
The government has also launched a new offensive in ethnic Karen areas along the country's eastern border with Thailand, displacing nearly 8,000 villagers, private groups said.
A prison department official said inmates were being freed from dozens of jails throughout the military-run state and all 5,070 should be let go by the end of yesterday.
"We are releasing them from 41 prisons around the country and we will finish today [yesterday]," the official said.
Well-known political prisoner Htwe Myint, 77, a senior member of the opposition Democracy Party, was confirmed as released by his family. He had been serving a seven-year sentence which had already expired, relatives said.
"I have just been to see him at our cousin's house. The whole family is very excited," Htwe Myint's niece said.
Democracy Party chairman Thu Wai was also freed, according to a spokesman of the National League for Democracy (NLD), the party headed by detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.
"I can confirm that both men were released," the NLD's U Lwin said.
Aung San Suu Kyi, a Nobel peace laureate detained in May last year, is under her third stint of house arrest, and the NLD announced late last month that authorities extended her house arrest by another year.
Seven truckloads carrying more than 300 inmates were seen rolling out of Insein prison, Myanmar's largest jail, yesterday to be released at other locations.
The latest mass release is the third announced since Nov. 18 and brings to 14,318 the total number of inmates the junta said it would free because they were wrongly imprisoned.
It said the prisoners were freed "because of national intelligence bureau (NIB) irregularities," referring to a disbanded military unit accused by the regime of abusing its powers in arresting thousands of citizens.
The NIB was disbanded in October in a purge that saw the sacking of pragmatist premier General Khin Nyunt, who headed the unit for year, and his house arrest on corruption allegations.
Meanwhile, about 4,780 villagers in western Karen state are hiding in jungle and mountain areas after Myanmar soldiers burned their barns and rice stocks in attacks beginning in mid-November, the Free Burma Rangers, a group of Western and Karen volunteers who provide medical aid to displaced people, said on Saturday.
"The people in hiding are now beginning to suffer from dysentery and respiratory infections due to their being crowded into small hiding places with limited water supplies," the group said in a statement.
More than 3,000 other people have been displaced in attacks elsewhere in Karen state that began at the end of November, it said.
Myanmar officials weren't immediately available for comment.
The Karen have sought autonomy in Myanmar, also called Burma, for more than half a century in what is one of the world's longest-running insurgencies.
Decades of conflict have up-rooted hundreds of thousands of Karen, including about 140,000 now in refugee camps in Thailand. The main rebel group, the Karen National Union, has been holding ceasefire talks with the junta since late last year.
The Washington-based US Committee for Refugees, which estimates that there are more than 600,000 internally displaced people in eastern Myanmar, said the new attacks "are of larger scale" than earlier attacks.
"What is also alarming is that 400 tonnes of paddy rice have been burned," said Veronika Martin, an analyst for the group.
Martin described the Karen as "one of the most ignored groups in one of the most difficult humanitarian emergencies," citing high maternal mortality rates among Karen displaced within the country.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese