THARRAWADDY: The new government of Myanmar democracy champion Aung San Suu Kyi released scores of jailed activists on Friday, just over a week after assuming power, and the new president is preparing to pardon 100 more people serving sentences for political offences.

Anxious families of detained activists earlier rushed to Myanmar prisons, as officials indicated dozens of students could be freed after Aung San Suu Kyi hinted at a mass amnesty for political prisoners.

In her first formal policy pledge since her government took office in the former junta-run nation last week, Suu Kyi said Thursday she would prioritize releasing activists, an issue laden with significance for herself and scores of MPs in her party once jailed for democracy activism.

Many of Suu Kyi’s supporters and members of her National League for Democracy (NLD) party were political prisoners under the junta that ceded power in 2011 after nearly 50 years of military rule. Suu Kyi herself spent years under house arrest and said on Thursday releasing remaining political prisoners was a top priority.

More than a hundred prisoners of conscience and students remained locked up in Myanmar, despite reforms in recent years, as the military loosened its grip on power after half a century of repressive junta rule.

On Friday morning families gathered at prisons in Yangon, the largest city, and in central Tharrawaddy, where students have been detained for more than a year over an education protest that was crushed in a violent police crackdown in March 2015.

Expectant families clutching bunches of flowers also greeted the students as they arrived by a police truck at a nearby courthouse, where officials said they were already preparing to free the students.

“I have instructed my staff to enable (their release) as soon as the prosecutor asks to withdraw the case. Our side is ready to proceed,” Kyaw Swar Nyein, district judge in Tharrawady told AFP.

Thirty-seven student activists are detained on a mix of charges, including unlawful assembly and rioting.

Another 45 are on bail but facing similar charges. The routine jailing of dissidents was one of the former junta’s most egregious acts, stirring international outcry and support for Suu Kyi’s pro-democracy movement.

While the quasi-civilian government that replaced the junta in 2011 freed hundreds of political detainees, it also oversaw the detention of scores more, particularly those involved in land and education protests.

According to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners there are some 121 political prisoners held in Myanmar’s jails, while a further 414 are believed to be awaiting trial.

The majority were arrested before last November’s landmark elections, which Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy won in a landslide.

Suu Kyi, who made the prisoner release announcement in her broadly-defined new position of state counsellor, did not give a clear timeline.