tag

Hundreds of prisoners, including a former government minister and a model, walked free in Myanmar Sunday after the junta announced annual independence day pardons, a week after the start of an election that watchdogs have denounced as sham. The military grabbed power in a 2021 coup that triggered civil war, pitting pro-democracy rebels against junta forces, with thousands of activists since arrested. A dozen buses full of released prisoners exited Yangon’s Insein prison Sunday morning, with some waving to crowds of well-wishers. Family members outside Insein - notorious for alleged brutal rights abuses - held up signs with the names of their jailed loved ones, unsure if they would be among those freed. One man, who declined to be named due to security concerns, said he was hoping to see his father, who was jailed for “doing politics”. Ex-information minister Ye Htut was among those freed, after serving more than two years of a 10-year sentence for sedition and incitement against the military. “I was informed about my release early Sunday morning. I didn’t expect that,” Ye Htut said adding that he had been held in isolation and was not allowed family visits while detained. He was the presidential spokesman under the military government of Thein Sein, which ceded power to democratic figurehead Aung San Suu Kyi following landmark elections in 2015. Ye Htut was sentenced in late 2023, weeks after he was arrested for spreading “wrong information” on social media. In total, junta chief Min Aung Hlaing pardoned 6,134 imprisoned Myanmar nationals, the National Defence and Security Council said, adding that 52 foreign prisoners would also be released and deported. The yearly prisoner amnesty was announced as the country marks 78 years of independence from British colonial rule. Several freed men and women embraced relatives in tears outside Insein. Some who spoke said they had been arrested for drugs, theft and other non-political crimes. “I am very happy to reunite with my family,” said 35-year-old Yazar Tun, as he held one of his three children outside the prison. He said he served around eight months of a year-long sentence for loitering. Prominent model and former doctor Nang Mwe San was also among those released. She was arrested in 2022 on a charge of “harming culture and dignity” for posting allegedly explicit videos online. Myanmar’s junta opened voting in a phased month-long election a week ago, with its leaders pledging the poll would bring democracy and national reconciliation. However, rights advocates and Western diplomats have condemned it as a sham and an effort to rebrand martial rule. The pro-military Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) has a decisive lead in the first phase, winning 90% of the lower house seats announced so far, according to official results published in state media on Saturday and Sunday. Many analysts describe the USDP as a civilian proxy of the military. Two more phases of voting are scheduled for January 11 and 25. The massively popular but dissolved National League for Democracy (NLD) of Suu Kyi did not appear on ballots, and she has been jailed since the coup. The military overturned the results of the last poll in 2020 after the NLD defeated the USDP by a landslide. The military and USDP then alleged massive voter fraud, claims that international monitors say were unfounded. The junta has said turnout in the first phase last week exceeded 50% of eligible voters, below the 2020 participation rate of around 70%. Myanmar frequently grants amnesty to thousands of prisoners to commemorate holidays or Buddhist festivals. A key aide to Suu Kyi was among hundreds of prisoners freed in a pre-election amnesty in November. The junta said that month it was dropping sentences for more than 3,000 prisoners, after they were prosecuted under post-coup legislation restricting free speech. 

The Israeli occupation forces arrested 50 Palestinians, most of them former prisoners, during a large-scale campaign of arrests and field investigations in the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem.In a statement on Thursday, the Palestinian Prisoners Club said that the arrest campaign has continued since dawn today, with arrests and field investigations concentrated in the Ramallah, while the rest of the arrests were distributed across Hebron, Tubas, Tulkarm, Nablus, Jenin, and Jerusalem.The club added that the arrests were accompanied by widespread raids and abuse, attacks against the detainees and their families, as well as widespread acts of sabotage and destruction in the homes of Palestinians.The club pointed out that the occupation has adopted a number of policies in the various areas it raids, and the key to these policies is the systematic field investigation that has affected dozens of families in all governorates.The number of arrests during 2025 reached more than 7,000 in the West Bank, including Jerusalem, in addition to the field investigations that affected thousands, while about 21,000 arrests were recorded since Oct. 7, 2023, without including arrests from Gaza, which are estimated to be in the thousands.

Two prisoners escaped from a French jail using bed sheets after sawing through the bars of their cell, a prosecutor said Thursday.France has some of the worst prison overcrowding in Europe, and staff unions have complained the state is neglecting normal jails as it moves narco criminals into new supermax prisons.Guards noticed that the two men had escaped from the jail in the eastern city of Dijon shortly before dawn, the prisons authority said.The pair "seem to have sawn through bars" and "fled using bed sheets", Dijon prosecutor Olivier Caracotch said, without providing further details on how exactly they used the bedding.The fugitives are a 19-year-old man held in pre-trial detention since October 2024 for attempted murder, and a 32-year-old man incarcerated since 2023 over threats and violence against a partner, Caracotch said.Union official Ahmed Saih, who represents prison officers at the jail, said the inmates used "old-fashioned, manual saw blades"."We've been warning about the risk of a jail break for months," Saih said, noting earlier reports of saw blades found inside the prison.He called for more staff and better equipment, including "gratings that cannot be sawn through".Dijon prison, built in 1853, is in poor condition, with 311 inmates for 180 places, according to the justice ministry."Prison is very hard here," an inmate released Thursday after eight months, told AFP."There were three of us in a cell: two on bunk beds and one sleeping on the floor," he said outside the prison gates.The prison break comes less than two weeks after another escape in the northwestern city of Rennes.A 37-year-old convict, who had more than a year still to serve for theft, fled on November 14 during an outing with fellow prisoners to the city's planetarium.He was arrested Thursday in a traveller community camp in the nearby city of Nantes, sources close to the case told AFP, requesting to remain unnamed as unauthorised to speak to the media.Justice Minister Gerald Darmanin sacked the prison's director.Three prison directors' unions on Wednesday lashed out at the tough-talking right-wing minister, who is pushing through a plan to lock up the most dangerous drug traffickers in supermax prisons.They accused him of "devoting all the resources of a debt-ridden state" to the high-security prisons for those accused of drug trafficking and jihadist attacks, and neglecting the "vast majority" of other jails."While the justice minister parades around in overfunded facilities, other (prison) services are suffering," they said in a joint statement.Darmanin last week announced the Dijon facility was scheduled to receive €6.3mn ($7.3mn), as part of a programme to eliminate mobile phones from six French prisons.France has some of the worst prison overcrowding in Europe, ranking third worst after Slovenia and Cyprus, according to a Council of Europe report published in July.In early October, the national average was 135 inmates per 100 places available.In comparison, the rate in Dijon is almost 173 inmates for 100 beds.Notorious French drug baron Mohamed Amra, known as "The Fly", was transferred to a new supermax prison in northern France in July.Amra made international headlines when he escaped in May 2024 when the prison van he was being transported in was ambushed by gunmen and two prison guards were killed.He was caught in Romania and extradited to France after a months-long manhunt. 

The number of martyrs among prisoners and detainees who were identified rose to 80 since the beginning of the war in the Gaza Strip. There were at least 47 martyrs from Gaza among them. According to the Palestinian News Agency (WAFA), citing the Palestinian Prisoners' Club, the total number of martyrs among prisoners and detainees whose identities are known since 1967 has risen to 317. This figure reflects what institutions have been able to document over decades. However, in light of the ongoing war, there is information about dozens of detainees who were executed in the field after being arrested, particularly from Gaza. The Prisoners' Club also noted that the Israeli occupation continues to withhold the bodies of 88 martyrs from the prisoners' movement, including 77 since the beginning of the war, while dozens of martyrs from among Gaza detainees remain forcibly disappeared.

Israeli occupation forces have arrested at least 20 Palestinians from the West Bank, including Jerusalem, from Saturday until Sunday morning. Among them were three children and former prisoners. The Palestinian news agency (WAFA) stated that the occupation continues its systematic arrest operations in the West Bank, which last night were carried out across the governorates of Nablus, Salfit, Qalqilya and Ramallah. Last night, Tubas Governorate witnessed a widespread raid and abuse, accompanied by field investigations, assaults and widespread vandalism and destruction of Palestinian homes and infrastructure. These arrest operations are retaliatory measures falling under the crime of collective punishment, as arrests have constituted — and continue to constitute — one of the occupation's most consistent and systematic policies, not only in terms of the number of detainees but also in the severity of the crimes committed. This arrest campaign is part of the escalating policy pursued by the Israeli occupation in the West Bank, aimed at intimidating Palestinians, restricting their movement, and targeting activists and released prisoners.

With huge crowds waiting to welcome them home, Palestinian prisoners released by Israel on Monday under a Gaza ceasefire deal were overwhelmed with joy as they returned to their loved ones.Some threw peace signs while others struggled to walk without assistance as they got off the bus and were met by a crowd cheering their return from Israel's jails to the West Bank city of Ramallah."It's an indescribable feeling, a new birth," Mahdi Ramadan, newly released, told AFP, flanked by his parents with whom he said he would spend his first evening out of jail.Nearby, relatives exchanged hugs, young men in tears pressed their foreheads against each other -- some even fainting from the emotion of seeing loved ones again after years, and sometimes decades, in jail.The crowd chanted in celebration "Allahu akbar", meaning God is the greatest.Among the Palestinians to be released under a US-brokered Gaza ceasefire deal, 250 are security detainees, including many convicted of killing Israelis, as well as about 1,700 Palestinians detained by the Israeli army in Gaza during the war.Israel agreed to free them in exchange for the release of hostages held in the Gaza Strip, under the first phase of US President Donald Trump's plan to end the war that was sparked by Hamas's unprecedented attack on Israel on October 7, 2023.Nour Soufan, now 27 years old, was due to meet his father Moussa, who was jailed a few months after his birth, outside of jail for the first time.Soufan and half a dozen relatives came to Ramallah from Nablus, in the north of the West Bank, and spent the night in their vehicle."I have never seen my father, and this is the first time I will see him. This is a very beautiful moment," Soufan said.Like him, many had defied the travel restrictions that puncture daily life in the Palestinian territory, with Israeli army checkpoints proliferating in two years of war.Palestinian media reported on Sunday that families of detainees had been contacted by Israeli authorities, asking them not to organise mass celebrations."No reception is allowed, no celebration is allowed, no gatherings," said Alaa Bani Odeh, who came from the northern town of Tammun to find his 20-year-old son who had been jailed for four years.AFP spoke to several prisoners who said that in their first hours of freedom, they would go home and stay with family.During previous releases, mass gatherings had flooded entire streets in Ramallah, with people waving Palestinian flags as well as those of political factions including Hamas.Dressed in the grey tracksuits of Israeli prisons, many prisoners also wore a black-and-white kuffiyeh around their necks -- the traditional scarf that has become synonymous with the Palestinian cause.Some of the newly released prisoners happily let themselves be carried away on relatives' shoulders."Prisoners live on hope... Coming home, to our land, is worth all the gold in the world," said one freed detainee, Samer al-Halabiyeh."God willing, peace will prevail, and the war on Gaza will stop," Halabiyeh added."Now I just want to live my life."Journalists rushed to talk to the prisoners, but many declined to engage, sometimes explaining that before their release, they were advised not to speak.In the south Gaza city of Khan Yunis, a crowd gathered near Nasser Hospital, in the hope of catching sight of the prisoners taken during the war with Israel.In the afternoon, thousands cheered to welcome their loved ones as they caught glimpse of the buses carrying them home.

Buses carrying released Palestinian prisoners arrived in the Gaza Strip on Monday through the Karam Abu Salem crossing, marking a significant moment in the first phase of the newly brokered ceasefire agreement.The release comes as part of a deal mediated by regional and international actors, aimed at de-escalating the ongoing conflict and laying the groundwork for broader peace talks. Families gathered at the crossing to welcome their loved ones, many of whom had spent years in Israeli detention.More details are expected as the ceasefire unfolds over the coming days, with additional exchanges and coordinated steps anticipated.

Palestinian prisoners' institutions said that the total number of prisoners and detainees in the Israeli occupation's prisons as of the beginning of October 2025 amounted to more than 11,000. The prisoners' institutions said in a joint statement that this number does not include detainees held in the Israeli occupation's military camps, noting that this number is the highest since Al-Aqsa Intifada in 2000, according to relevant institutions. According to the Israeli occupation's prison administration, the number of prisoners serving sentences as of October exceeded 1,460, while the number of prisoners serving life sentences and those facing indictments pending life sentences reached approximately 350. The number of administrative detainees reached 3,544, the highest percentage compared to the number of detained and convicted prisoners, while the number of detainees classified as "illegal combatants" reached 2,673. This number does not include all Gaza detainees held in Israeli military camps and classified as such. The number of prisoners before the genocide in the Gaza Strip amounted to more than 5,250, including approximately 40 female prisoners and 180 children, while the number of administrative detainees amounted to approximately 1,320, the statement added. Palestinian prisoners' institutions stressed that these numbers reflect the escalation of the occupation's policies and systematic violations, both inside prisons and during arrests, calling for immediate international action to protect prisoners and hold those responsible for these crimes accountable.