Burma: the junta releases and pardons one of the country's most famous actors
Actor Paing Takhon during a demonstration against the Burmese junta in Yangon on February 11, 2021. AFP - STR
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1 min
In Burma, the junta has freed and pardoned one of the country's most famous actors, arrested last April for taking part in protests against the coup.
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With our correspondent in Bangkok,
Carol Isoux
He is undoubtedly the most famous Burmese actor abroad, and in particular among his Thai neighbors, for whom he is a real star.
Paing Takhon, 25, was released on Wednesday afternoon according to authorities.
Photos on social networks confirm this release, the young man appears there smiling, in good health, sporting a slight beard.
He had been abducted last April by a military convoy from his home
and then sentenced to three years of forced labor
.
A sentence now overturned.
Paing Takhon was released along with other actors and entertainment personalities in Burma, including actor-producer Lu Min, to "
help build a new nation through their art
", according to a spokesman for the junta.
The action corresponds to a declared desire of the military government to normalize the situation, particularly in the big cities, by releasing thousands of political prisoners for several months.
About 9,400 of them remain incarcerated, risk or have already received very long prison sentences.
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