Myanmar releases dissidents, keeps many locked up

YANGON, Myanmar — Myanmar freed an outspoken critic and a major ethnic rebel as it released 6,300 convicts 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 206 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 Wednesday 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.

In Washington, the State Department welcomed Wednesday's releases, but said the Myanmar government had not published a list of those freed or designated to be freed. The department said its initial reports were that the majority of political prisoners remain in detention, including 1988 protest leader Min Ko Naing and ethnic Shan leader Hkun Htun Oo. The U.S., which has been seeking ways to re-engage with Myanmar, reiterated its call for the immediate release of all remaining prisoners of conscience.

Relatives of convicts held emotional reunions with loved ones outside prisons around the country Wednesday, a day after the country's new civilian president declared an amnesty for more than 6,300 inmates — many of them ordinary criminals — on humanitarian grounds, but without disclosing any names.

On Thursday, a government official speaking on customary condition of anonymity confirmed that 6,359 inmates were released Wednesday from 43 prisons nationwide.

"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.