Chinese Premier Li Keqiang (R) shakes hands with Myanmar President Thein Sein during their meeting at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on Nov. 8, 2014. Thursday, nearly 7,000 prisoners, including 158 Chinese loggers who were handed a stiff penalty for illegal logging, were pardoned and released from prison. FIle Photo by Pang Xinglei/UPI | License Photo

YANGON, Myanmar, July 31 (UPI) -- Nearly 7,000 prisoners, including more than 200 foreign nationals and former military-intelligence officers, were pardoned and released from prison Thursday in what is being called one of the largest Myanmar amnesty actions in years.

The country's Ministry of Information said 6,966 prisoners were granted presidential amnesty "for the sake of stability and durable peace of the state, national reconciliation, on humanitarian grounds and to enable them to take part in the political process."


Among the 210 foreigners released were 153 Chinese loggers who had been sentenced to life for illegal logging, a move that could ease tensions between the country and its neighbors to the north. It is unclear if Philip Blackwood, a New Zealand national who used an image of Buddha to promote his bar, was released.

Among the military-intelligence officers released were Than Tun, a former brigadier general, and Tin Htut, son-in-law of the former Prime Minister and head of military intelligence Khin Nyunt. Others intelligence officers were released in late 2014 in a similar amnesty.

Thousand have been released since President Thein Sein took office in 2011. His promise to free all political prisoners or "prisoners of conscience" by 2014 was not met. The Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, a watchdog group which monitor Myanmar's political prisoners, said about 158 remain.