Myanmar media quoted the Myanmar Military Commission on the 17th as saying that because it was Myanmar's National Day, the Myanmar military government pardoned and released about 6,000 prisoners, including four foreigners, former adviser to Myanmar State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi and Australian economics professor Tenel, former British ambassador to Myanmar Bowman and Japanese journalist Toru Kubota. Among them, Tenel served as an adviser to Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmar's former State Counsellor, who has been detained by the military since the coup d'état in Myanmar last February. In September, he was convicted of violating official secrecy and immigration laws and sentenced to three years in prison. Toru Kubota was arrested in July while participating in an anti-junta demonstration in Yangon, where he filmed and interviewed protesters, and was sentenced in October to 10 years in prison on charges of sedition, among other charges. (Phoenix Satellite TV Liu Jiani comprehensive report)
