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About 150 death row inmates in Sri Lanka have gone on a hunger strike to demand their sentences be commuted after the island nation’s president pardoned a former legislator who had been condemned to death for an election-related killing.

Several inmates protested on the roof of a prison in the capital, Colombo, holding up banners demanding equal treatment and bail consideration, the Associated Press reported on Friday.

“Grant pardon to us like you did to terrorists and notorious politicians,” one banner said in local script.

The former legislator’s surprise release on Thursday after he was pardoned by President Gotabaya Rajapaksa has drawn widespread criticism, including from the United Nations’ human rights office and the United States ambassador in Sri Lanka.

Duminda Silva is widely seen as a favourite of Sri Lanka’s ruling Rajapaksa family and had been sentenced to death over the murder of a rival politician from his own party in an election-related attack about 10 years ago.

The hunger strike involved about 150 inmates sentenced to death who were demanding their sentences be commuted to life terms, prison spokesman Chandana Ekanayake said.

He said the prison officials were holding talks with the justice ministry and other government officials to resolve the issue but declined to give further details.

Sri Lankan prisons are highly congested with more than 26,000 inmates crowded into facilities with a capacity of 10,000.

Unrest related to COVID-19 erupted in one of the prisons last year, and at least 11 inmates were killed and more than 100 wounded when guards opened fire to control the unrest.

Silva’s surprise release appeared to have set off the protest.

The UN human rights office said Silva’s case “is another example of selective, arbitrary granting of pardons that weakens rule of law and undermines accountability”.

US Ambassador Alaina B Teplitz in a tweet on Thursday said the pardon of Silva “undermines rule of law”.

Sri Lanka has not hanged a prisoner since 1976 even though courts routinely pass death sentences.

Rajapaksa’s predecessor, Maithripala Sirisena, had promised to end the moratorium on capital punishment and to use it against those convicted of drug crimes.

Prison officials hired two executioners to carry out the hangings, but none took place during Sirisena’s tenure.

Ethiopia’s military has denied it carried out an airstrike on a busy market in Tigray, which left dozens of people dead, but it acknowledged targeting rebel fighters “in civilian clothes” in the restive region.

“We do not accept that this operation targeted civilians,” Colonel Getnet Adane, Ethiopian National Defense Force spokesman, told Reuters the news agency, adding that the combatants in the town of Togoga were dressed in civilian clothes.

A resident of the town told Reuters on Wednesday that the airstrike a day earlier had hit a market in the town west of Mekelle. That resident also said that her two-year-old daughter had been injured in the attack.

The military spokesman said the combatants were not inside the market but had gathered in the town to commemorate the anniversary of the bombing of another town in Tigray, Hawzen, in 1988. That attack, by Ethiopia’s then-ruling communist leaders, killed hundreds of people and is widely commemorated in Tigray.

The Ethiopian military has been battling forces loyal to the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), the region’s former ruling party, since November. Fighting has displaced two million people and the United Nations have warned of a possible famine.

Asked about children injured in Tuesday’s attack, the spokesman said the TPLF uses propaganda and is known for faking injuries. He also said that doctors quoted by the media are not “real doctors”.

The remarks were the first acknowledgement by the military of the airstrike, which came after residents said new fighting had flared in recent days north of Tigray’s regional capital Mekelle.

Previously, Getnet, the military spokesman, had declined to confirm or deny the incident, saying airstrikes were a common military tactic and that government forces do not target civilians.

The UN said it was “deeply disturbed” by reports the army had blocked evacuations and called on Ethiopian authorities to conduct an urgent investigation.

“Attacks directed against civilians and indiscriminate attacks are prohibited,” said acting assistant secretary-general for humanitarian affairs, Ramesh Rajasingham.

The United States said it was “gravely concerned” by the reported fatalities and called for an urgent investigation.

“We strongly condemn this reprehensible act,” State Department spokesman Ned Price said in a statement.

European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said if confirmed, the blocking of ambulances could amount to a violation of international law.

This bombing “adds to the appalling series of violations of international humanitarian law and human rights” in Tigray, he said.