TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Tajikistan plans to pardon 10,000 prisoners to celebrate two decades of the former Soviet Union republic's Constitution, said Tajikistan's Presidential Office on Monday.
Emomali Rakhmon, the President of Tajikistan, has submitted an Amnesty Bill to the Parliament, which will grant special amnesty to females, underage and/or foreign detainees, as well as prisoners who had served at least three quarters of their prison sentences. That said, those who were imprisoned for severe crimes - which includes murder, treason and terrorism - will be exempted from the amnesty provisions.
Tajikistan - a Muslim-majority country with a population of around 8 million people - is ruled by Emomali Rakhmon, a former Soviet Union apparatchik who had ruled the nation since 1992.
ANTARA | ADE MARBOEN