Myanmar Frees Loggers From China Amid a Broader Amnesty

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/31/world/asia/myanmar-frees-loggers-from-china-amid-a-broader-amnesty.html

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YANGON, Myanmar — Days after a court in Myanmar sentenced more than 150 Chinese citizens to life in prison for illegal logging, resulting in objections from Beijing, the national government said on Thursday that they would be freed as part of a broader amnesty.

Hong Lei, a spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry in Beijing, said Myanmar had notified China that the amnesty for nearly 7,000 prisoners, which Myanmar had announced earlier in the day, would include the Chinese loggers. China had been in “close communication” with Myanmar over the issue, Mr. Hong said.

The Chinese were arrested in January on suspicion of illegal logging in Kachin State, which borders Yunnan Province in China. Kachin is rich in natural resources, including jade and wood, and many Chinese cross the border from Yunnan to capitalize on that.

A court in Myitkyina, the state capital, on July 22 sentenced 153 of the Chinese to life in prison and two others to shorter sentences. China objected, calling on Myanmar to free the prisoners and return them to China.

All 155 were being released under the amnesty, according to Mr. Hong.

U Mong Gwang, a liaison officer with the Kachin Independence Organization, which controls part of the State, said on Thursday that the Chinese had been freed and deported. “People in the town are surprised at the news,” Mr. Mong Gwang said. “They were just sentenced eight days ago.”

An official at Myanmar’s Information Ministry said he had no further details of the prisoner amnesty.

U Bo Kyi, joint secretary of the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, a rights group, noted that the amnesty was announced days before a scheduled visit by Yanghee Lee, the United Nations’ special rapporteur on Myanmar. Mr. Bo Kyi called for Myanmar to free more political prisoners, saying that only a handful were among those released on Thursday.

Some Burmese expressed anger on social media and elsewhere about the release of the Chinese. “It is very clear that the Myanmar government is afraid of China,” U Thein Than Oo, a lawyer in Mandalay, the country’s second-largest city, said in an interview.