A senior official with Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy says the incoming government is putting the issue of freeing political prisoners on its immediate to-do list.
U Win Htein, an NLD spokesman and member of the party’s Central Executive Committee, told the Voice Weekly that in a democracy, “there must be no political prisoners in prison.”
“This issue is on the prioritized list after we have a new government,” he added.
New lawmakers, the majority of whom are from the NLD, will take their seats on February 1.
Ex-political prisoners make up 115 of the NLD’s elected candidates, according to the Voice.
Earlier this week Human Rights Watch recounted how President Thein Sein pledged to release all political prisoners around the time that US President Barack Obama visited Myanmar in 2012. He followed through on the promise and by early 2014, there were only about 25 left, according to HRW.
“But that number soon grew again as the government arrested and jailed people protesting on land rights, education, and other government policies and actions,” the rights group said in its review of the problem while urging the president to take action.
There are an estimated 128 political prisoners in Myanmar, but as HRW points out, an additional 472 people face “apparently politically motivated charges.”
“Many are students, land rights activists, journalists, and an increasing number of people charged with criminal defamation for social media posts or allegedly ‘insulting religion.’”
