APSN | Burma rights body urges release of 'prisoners of conscience'

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Burma rights body urges release of 'prisoners of conscience'

Irrawaddy - October 11, 2011

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Saw Yan Naing – Burma's newly established human rights body has urged the country's president to release "prisoners of conscience," in a move seen as confirming recent reports that the government is planning to free a significant number of political prisoners.

In an open letter published in the state-run newspaper The New Light of Myanmar on Tuesday, the chairman of the Myanmar National Human Rights Commission, Win Mra, said that President Thein Sein should release prisoners who don't pose "a threat to the stability of state and public tranquility" as "a reflection of his magnanimity."

The move comes just days after the speaker of Burma's Lower House of Parliament, Shwe Mann, told the visiting Norwegian deputy foreign minister, Espen Barth Eide, in Naypyidaw on Friday that political prisoners will be released "within a few days," according to a report by NRK, Norway's public service broadcaster.

There are estimated to be around 2,000 political activists inside Burma's prisons, including monks, nuns, journalists and bloggers. Their release is a key demand of the international community, with the US and EU saying that sanctions imposed in response to human rights abuses won't be lifted until this condition is met.

Meanwhile, a senior US diplomat said on Monday that Washington will respond with reciprocal measures to moves by Burma's military-backed government to become freer and more democratic.

US Assistant Secretary of State Kurt Campbell said that elections that brought a civilian government to power in March were flawed and that the United States still has many concerns about issues in Burma, "but it is also undeniably the case that there are dramatic developments under way."

Campbell, speaking at a lecture in Bangkok, said Burma's president also appears to be open to easing limits on freedom of speech and holding talks with ethnic rebels. The US State Department earlier called on Burma to end its armed conflict with ethnic armed groups in its borderlands.