Burma's most notorious prison is Rangoon's Insein jail
* Burma announced an amnesty of 15,000 prisoners in May 2011 and freed more than 7,000 in 2009 - but those moves were criticized by rights groups for failing to include political prisoners.
* The Burmese government has freed about 200 political prisoners as part of a general amnesty, activists say.
* The country's continued detention of about 2,000 political prisoners is a crucial reason why Western nations maintain sanctions on Burma.
* The government said on Tuesday that more than 6,000 prisoners would be freed but it was unclear how many would be political detainees.
* No official tally of the number of political prisoners is available and some have been freed in amnesties in the past year. But before the 13 January releases opposition groups estimated between 600 and 1,000 were in custody.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Your Comment