RANGOON, Burma — Burma’s longest-serving political prisoner was among more than 9,000 inmates freed yesterday, days before the first anniversary of the junta’s deadly crackdown on anti-government protests led by Buddhist monks.

Win Tin, a journalist-turned-activist and aide to pro-democracy opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, was held for 19 years. He was one of at least seven political prisoners released, Amnesty International said.

The rights group said there are an estimated 2,100 political prisoners in Burma, which has been under military rule for 46 years and is one of the world’s poorest and most authoritarian nations.

A longtime journalist and poet, while in prison Mr. Win would write poems on the walls of his cell with ink made of brick powder and water, according to supporters who visited him. He said he would keep wearing his prison blues as a sign of protest against the military rulers, and he vowed to keep pressing for more freedom.

“I have to continue with my unfinished task of trying to achieve democracy in Myanmar,” he said from a friend’s home in Yangon after being released from Insein Prison.

While incarcerated, Mr. Win had two heart attacks, a hernia operation, and suffered from high blood pressure, diabetes, and spinal inflammation, according to international media groups. Now 78, he appeared alert and healthy despite recent reports of being ill.

Asked how it felt to be free, Mr. Win replied, “I will be happy only when all political prisoners, including Aung San Suu Kyi, are released.”

Nobel Peace Prize winner Ms. Suu Kyi has spent more than 12 of the past 19 years in detention, mostly under house arrest. In 1990, her party won a landslide victory that the junta refused to acknowledge. Instead, the regime stepped up arrests and repression of dissidents.

Ms. Suu Kyi has called Mr. Win “a man of courage and integrity” and said he was instrumental in Burma’s democracy movement. Human rights groups rejoiced at his release.

The amnesty granted to 9,002 prisoners around the country was believed to be one of the largest the junta has approved.

It came days ahead of the first anniversary of the military junta’s brutal crackdown on protests led by Buddhist monks. The United Nations estimated at least 31 people were killed when the army fired on peaceful protesters September 26-27, sparking global outrage.

Analysts suspect the junta timed the release as an attempt to fend off international criticism on the anniversary.