Myanmar releases dissidents, keeps many locked up

YANGON, Myanmar — Myanmar freed an outspoken critic and a major ethnic rebel as it began releasing 6,300 convicts Wednesday in its latest liberalizing move, but kept some political detainees behind bars, dampening hopes for a broader amnesty.

It was not clear how many of the country's estimated 2,000 political detainees were included in the amnesty — one estimate said only 155 of them were freed. But the released included ailing Shan Army commander Hso Hten and comedian Zarganar, who was imprisoned after criticizing the government's response to Cyclone Nargis in 2008.

"I will be happy and I will thank the government only when all of my friends are freed," Zarganar told The Associated Press after his release in northernmost Kachin State.

Those held back included student leaders from Myanmar's failed 1988 democracy uprising and a blogger serving a 12-year prison sentence.

Western governments, the U.N. and Myanmar's opposition have eagerly awaited a broad political amnesty as a gesture of liberalization by the elected government after decades of harsh military rule. A failure to follow through on those hopes could hamper the country's efforts to burnish its human rights record and win a lifting of Western economic and political sanctions.

Relatives of convicts held emotional reunions with loved ones outside prisons around the country a day after the country's new civilian president declared an amnesty for 6,359 inmates — many of them ordinary criminals — on humanitarian grounds, but without disclosing any names.

"The freedom of each individual is invaluable, but I wish that all political prisoners would be released," said Myanmar's most prominent pro-democracy campaigner, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi.

Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy confirmed the release of 155 political detainees, including members of her party, spokesman Nyan Win said. But other dissidents could have been freed without having contacted anyone yet.

President Thein Sein, a retired senior army officer who took office in March, has launched a series of economic reforms and eased limits on freedom of speech by relaxing censorship and unblocking banned websites.

He also has started a dialogue with Suu Kyi, made calls for peace with ethnic minority rebel groups and suspended a controversial China-backed hydropower dam project after a public outcry.