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Myanmar’s junta said it would release more than 6000 prisoners as part of an annual amnesty to mark the country’s independence day.

The military has arrested thousands of protesters and activists since its February 2021 coup that ended Myanmar’s brief democratic experiment and plunged the nation into civil war.

Junta chief Min Aung Hlaing has pardoned 6134 imprisoned Myanmar nationals, the National Defence and Security Council said.

Fifty-two foreign prisoners were also to be released and deported, it said in a separate statement.

The yearly prisoner amnesty “on humanitarian and compassionate grounds”, according to the national security council, comes as the country marks 78 years of independence from British colonial rule.

Hundreds of people were waiting for the release of their family members outside Yangon’s Insein prison on Sunday (local time), holding papers with names of prisoners on them, an AFP journalist said.

“I am waiting for my dad to be released. He was arrested and imprisoned for doing politics,” said one man outside the prison, which is notorious for alleged brutal rights abuses.

“His sentence is about to end. I hope he will be released as soon as possible,” said the man, who declined to be named because of security concerns.

Decisive lead

Myanmar’s junta opened voting in a phased, month-long election a week ago, with its leaders pledging the poll would bring on democracy.

However, rights advocates and Western diplomats have condemned it as a sham and a rebranding of martial rule.

The pro-military Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) has a decisive lead in the first phase, with the USDP winning 90% of the lower house seats announced so far, according to official results published in state media on Saturday and Sunday.

The USDP – which many analysts describe as a civilian proxy of the military – has won 87 of the 96 lower house seats announced, the results published in the state-run Global New Light of Myanmar newspaper showed.

Six ethnic minority parties picked up nine seats.

The winners of six townships have yet to be announced in the first phase of voting. Two more phases are scheduled for January 11 and 25.

The massively popular but dissolved National League for Democracy (NLD) of democratic figurehead Aung San Suu Kyi did not appear on ballots, and she has been jailed since the coup.

The military overturned the results of the last poll in 2020 after the NLD defeated the USDP by a landslide.

The military and USDP then alleged massive voter fraud, claims that international monitors say were unfounded.

The junta has said turnout in the first phase last month exceeded 50% of eligible voters, below the 2020 participation rate of around 70%.

A key aide to Aung San Suu Kyi was among hundreds of prisoners freed by the junta in a pre-election amnesty in November.

The junta said that month that more than 3000 prisoners would have their sentences dropped, after they were prosecuted under post-coup legislation restricting free speech.

- Agence France-Presse