YANGON (AFP) -- Only a handful of political detainees were among the 6,300 prisoners released from military-run Myanmar's notorious jails this weekend, an opposition party spokesman said Sunday.

Myanmar's military government said Friday that the massive prisoner release would allow more people to take part in elections promised for next year, and the announcement came a day after a UN human rights envoy visited the country.
But Nyan Win, spokesman for detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD) Party, said only 10 of Myanmar's estimated 2,000 prisoners of conscience were freed on Saturday.
“About 10 political prisoners including monks and a nun were released,” he told AFP, adding that four of those released were NLD members who spent about five years in jail. He did not have the details of the other people set free.
“We are glad for their release but many people should be released,” he said.
The UN's special rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar, Tomas Ojea Quintana, wrapped up a six-day trip to the country on Thursday during which he called for the “progressive” release of political detainees.
The United Nations has urged Myanmar's ruling generals to free all political prisoners, the most famous of whom is pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi. She has been detained for most of the last 19 years.
In September last year Myanmar's junta freed more than 9,000 prisoners, among them Win Tin, a 78-year-old journalist, who was the country's longest-serving political prisoner.
But courts have handed out heavy jail terms to dozens of pro-democracy activists in recent months, many of them involved in protests led by Buddhist monks that erupted in 2007.
The United Nations has said at least 31 people were killed during a crackdown on the protests.
Myanmar's government has said it will hold multi-party elections in 2010, but critics say the polls are just a way for the generals to solidify and legitimize their nearly five-decade grip on power.