DUSHANBE, November 15, 2014, Asia-Plus — 726 people have been freed from five penitentiary institutions in the northern Sughd province under a mass amnesty approved by parliament on October 29.
“To-date, 64 inmates of a high security penal colony, 42 inmates of a medium-security penal colony, 483 inmates of penal settlement and 46 inmates of a pretrial detention facility in the city of Khujand as well as 91 inmates of a penal colony in the city of Istaravshan city have been freed under the 2014 amnesty,” Ortiqboy Mirzoyev, a senior aide to the Sughd chief prosecutor, told Asia-Plus in an interview Friday afternoon.
According to him, the freed inmates included 710 residents of Sughd province, six residents of Khatlon province, two from the Gorno Badakhshan Autonomous Region (GBAO) and four foreign nationals.
The amnesty law applies to 10,000 imprisoned convicts and suspects in pretrial detention facilities.
President Emomali Rahmon proposed the amnesty to mark the 20th anniversary of the adoption of Tajikistan”s post-Soviet constitution on November 6, 1994.
