Hundreds of political prisoners, including Aung San Suu Kyi's party representative and a well-known comedian named Zarganar, have been released by Myanmar's military administration from the infamous Insein jail, reports said.
State television announced minutes after military ruler Min Aung Hlaing's speech on Monday that more than 5,600 persons jailed or wanted for their roles in anti-coup protests would be released in a humanitarian amnesty.
Some activists saw the publication as a ruse by the ruling military to restore its international image after the Association of Southeast Asian Nations took the unusual step of excluding the junta commander from attending its summit.
Tom Andrews, the United Nations special rapporteur, welcomed the prisoners' release on social media, but called their detention "ridiculous."
"The junta is releasing political detainees in Myanmar because of increasing pressure, not because of a change of heart," Andrews explained.
In an extraordinary blow to the country's military leaders behind the coup against Suu Kyi's democratic government, ASEAN decided to invite a non-political delegate to its October 26-28 summit.
Monywa Aung Shin was arrested on February 1 and has been in prison for eight months.
Detainees were reunited with tearful family members in photos and videos shared on social media.
Other images showed a line of buses exiting the jail's rear entrance, with passengers leaning out the windows and waving to the throng outside.
A representative for Myanmar's prison service and a spokeswoman for the junta were not immediately available for comment.
On Monday, other political detainees, including lawmakers and journalists, were released in Lashio, Mandalay, Myeik, and Meiktila.
According to local media Democratic Voice of Burma, 11 of the 38 detainees released from Meiktila prison in central Myanmar were imprisoned again.
This information could not be independently verified by Reuters.
The southeast Asian country has been in turmoil since the military takeover, which ended many years of unstable democracy and economic reform.
Myanmar's security forces have killed over 1,100 people and arrested more than 9,000 individuals, including Suu Kyi, the rights group Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, which monitors killings, arrests and other atrocities, said.
