Myanmar’s military government announced on Saturday that it would be awarding amnesty to more than 800 prisoners to mark the country’s Union Day.
The “pardon order” is a regular feature of major holidays in the country. State media announced that junta leader Min Aung Hlaing had issued it for 814 prisoners to mark the country’s 75th Union Day. Those granted amnesties are mostly from prisons in commercial hub Yangon, junta spokesperson Zaw Min Tun told AFP.
Following the announcement, almost 100 people gathered outside Yangon’s Insein prison on Saturday in hopes of being reunited with loved ones, AFP correspondents said. Four minibuses left the prison around noon (local time), with those on board waving as people in the crowd shouted the names of relatives.
In celebration of the holiday, the military government displayed its force in the capital, Naypyidaw, by holding a military parade, replete with choreographed dances and civil servants waving national flags. Helicopters carrying the country’s yellow, green, and red flag flew overhead, while jets trailed the same colours in smoke.
"According to @UNESCO, in the past year, at least 146 journalists have been arrested [in #Myanmar], while some 52 journalists, including 12 women, remain under detention as of yesterday. At least three reporters are known to have died in detention."@UN https://t.co/jeqiP2t9Pi pic.twitter.com/WnhESvNhSO
— Lotte Leicht (@LotteLeicht1) February 11, 2022
In his speech to the national troops, Min Aung Hlaing once again repeated the military’s unfounded claims of massive fraud in the November 2020 general elections, during which, Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) party secured a landslide victory with 83% of the votes.
Based on the same claim, Myanmar’s military took over the government in a coup last February. After Min Aung Hlaing came to power, many high-level politicians, including State Counsellor Suu Kyi and President Win Myint, were placed under house arrest.
In a similar announcement last year, the junta government announced that more than 5,600 people who were arrested or wanted over their roles in pro-democracy protests would be freed in an amnesty on humanitarian grounds to mark the Thadingyut festival later in October. They were released on the pre-condition that they sign agreements pledging not to re-offend the military government. While hundreds of political prisoners were indeed freed from the infamous Insein prison, they were all re-arrested shortly after their release.
Since the beginning of the military coup on February 1, 2021, nearly 1,500 people have been killed and 11,500 arrested. Meanwhile, ousted democratic leader Aung San Suu Kyi currently faces nearly a dozen cases that carry a combined maximum sentence of more than 100 years in prison.
Commenting on the celebration of the holiday, an independent analyst on Myanmar, David Mathieson, called the parade “performance art.” “The message for Union Day is at complete odds with the reality that is Myanmar. It’s pretty absurd that on the 75th anniversary of Union Day the country is more divided than at any point in its history,” he told AFP. Mathieson added that the military was not sincere in its promises of peace.