Myanmar’s military government said that it will release around 6,000 prisoners, including 180 foreigners, under an amnesty marking the nation’s Independence Day. It also reduced sentences of other inmates’ as part of a mass amnesty. The military did not give details of what the prisoners had been convicted of or the nationalities of the foreign detainees who were set to be deported on release. The military said it ordered the pardons on humanitarian and compassionate grounds.
Among those still imprisoned by the junta is the country’s former leader, Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi.
