Despite receiving pardons former State Counselor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and former President U Win Myint still have long prison sentences to serve under other unpardoned charges.

Aung San Suu Kyi was originally sentenced to 33 years in prison for 19 offences. She has been pardoned for five of those 19 charges which only reduced her sentence to 27 years. As Aung San Suu Kyi is already 78 years old her sentence is effectively a life sentence, irrespective of whether she has to serve 27 or 33 years.

Her youngest son, 44-year-old Kim Arris, a British national, said to Sky News: “The fact that they've reduced my mother's sentence by a few years means absolutely nothing.”

U Win Myint was originally sentenced to 12 years for 8 offences. He has been pardoned for two of those charges and will now have to serve eight years.

Previously, in December 2021 the junta reduced both Aung San Suu Kyi and U Win Myint’s sentences by two years, when it reduced the four-year sentences they had both received for incitement and violation of Covid-19 public health restrictions.

The pardons were part of a nationwide mass prisoner amnesty. The junta released 7,749 prisoners early on Tuesday 1 August to celebrate the Waso Full Moon, which marks the first day the Buddha gave a sermon and the beginning of Buddhist lent.