YANGON, Nov 27 (AFP): A key aide to Myanmar's deposed democratic figurehead Aung San Suu Kyi was among hundreds of political prisoners freed by the junta in a pre-election amnesty on Thursday, AFP reporters saw.
Myanmar's military snatched power in a 2021 coup-toppling Suu Kyi's civilian government, jailing the Nobel laureate and making unsubstantiated allegations of electoral fraud after her party won national polls by a landslide.
The coup prompted a devastating civil war, but the military has scheduled phased elections beginning December 28, touting the polls as an opportunity for reconciliation.
The junta announced Wednesday its most significant amnesty of political prisoners in years, saying 3,085 prosecuted under post-coup legislation restricting free speech would have their sentences dropped.
It is unclear whether that full number will be released as many may have additional convictions.
But AFP reporters outside Yangon's Insein Prison saw around 200 prisoners freed on Thursday morning.
Families holding placards bearing their relatives' names waited as white minibuses ferried out prisoners before they locked in tearful embraces.
Among them was Kyi Toe, the former information committee chief of Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD) party who was jailed since 2021.
He largely avoided the topic of politics in a post-release interview, but pledged "to be strong to work together" with Suu Kyi-who remains sequestered in military detention in the capital Naypyidaw.
Her NLD party which won 2020 polls has been dissolved by the junta and is not eligible to participate in the elections which are expected to last around a month.
Several rights monitors and a UN expert have dismissed the vote as a fig leaf to conceal continuing military rule, but the pre-election prisoner amnesty is a rare backtrack of political prosecutions.
Those released had been prosecuted under a post-coup penal code amendment punishing comments that "cause fear" or spread "false news" with up to three years in prison.
The clause is frequently cited by media freedom groups as one of many speech curbs the junta has used to cudgel dissent.
