AP reports: Myanmar is releasing more than 14,600 prisoners under a clemency program that will include very few political prisoners.

Nyein Chan Naing / EPA

Female prisoners listen to the briefing of U Zaw Win, director general of the prison department, at the central Insein prison in Yangon, Myanmar on 17 May.

Prison Department Director General Zaw Win said most of the convicts, including 2,166 women, were being freed Tuesday from jails around the country.

The limited nature of the program — commuting death sentences to life imprisonment and cutting one year from convicts' prison terms — has drawn criticism from many who had expected more generous terms, similar to broader amnesties that have been announced in the past.

Nyein Chan Naing / EPA

Prisoners line up in front of the main gate of Insein central prison as security officers stand guard, in Yangon on 17 May.

Most of the country's political prisoners, both from the pro-democracy movement and from out-of-favor factions in the government, are serving long prison terms that will keep them locked up.

"My hopes are shattered. I thought my husband would be released in a general amnesty," said Moe Moe, 33, the wife of a former military intelligence officer sentenced in 2005 to 15 years in prison, after the measure was announced Monday night.

Asked how many political prisoners were among those to be released, Zaw Win repeated the government's position that the country has no political detainees. Continue reading.

Khin Maung Win / AP

Prisoners walk out of Insein Prison after they were released as the new government cut one year from their prison terms under a "general amnesty" on May 17.

Sam Panthaky / AFP - Getty Images

A released Indian prisoner watches from a railway compartment as he arrives at the railway station in Ahmedabad, India on April 20. Some 89 Indian prisoners, mainly fishermen recently released by Pakistani authorities, were welcomed by Gujarat state agriculture minister, Dilip Sanghani at Ahmedabad railway station on their way to the Saurashtra region.

This man was among a group of 89 Indian fishermen who were released from a Pakistani jail on April 14, as we reported on PhotoBlog. Their release, described as a goodwill gesture by Pakistani prisons chief Ghulam Qadir Thebo, follows a high profile meeting between the two countries' leaders at the cricket World Cup final last month.

AFP - Getty Images

Backers of Ivory Coast strongman Laurent Gbagbo seized by supporters of the country's internationally recognized leader Alassane Ouattara are held on April 5 at the Golf Hotel, Ouattara's headquarters in Abidjan.

AFP - Getty Images

Backers of Ivory Coast strongman Laurent Gbagbo seized by supporters of the country's internationally recognized leader Alassane Ouattara are led on a rope on April 5 at the Golf Hotel, Ouattara's headquarters in Abidjan.

Read about the latest developments in Abidjan, where Laurent Gbagbo is bunkered down in his residence as forces loyal to presidential claimant Alassane Ouattara attack the building.