Including the country’s longest-serving political prisoner, the writer (and friend of Aung San Suu Kyi) Win Tin. Most of those freed were not political prisoners but rather conventional prisoners. Still it is something. But:

“When the government wants to reduce the pressure coming from foreign countries, especially during the United Nations General Assembly, they release prisoners,” said Bo Kyi, head of the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners in Myanmar.

Some 37 activists have been arrested this month alone, Mr. Bo Kyi said.

Win Tin will continue to wear his blue prison uniform as a sign of protest. He was kept in solitary confinement for most of the nineteen years he spent behind bars.

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