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Russian Parliament Declares Amnesty Bill
The Russian State Duma declared an amnesty Friday in commemoration of the 55th anniversary of the victory over Nazi Germany. Up to 300,000 people are expected to benefit from the pardon.
Deputies at the lower house of parliament unanimously voted for the measure, the Interfax news agency reported.
According to Justice Minister Yuri Chaika, the amnesty ruling may release up to 120,000 inmates. In addition, another 200,000 people under investigation but not held in detention might also benefit.
The amnesty will mainly concern first-time offenders and those who committed only lesser crimes, the minister said.
The Russian prison and remand center population has reached 1,084,000, of which over 43,000 are women, 96,000 are suffering from tuberculosis and more than 4,000 infected with the HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, a senior official of the Justice Ministry said earlier this month.
The people behind bars in today's Russia are as many as those of the entire Soviet Union during the late 1980s, said Alexander Zubkov, deputy head of the Justice Ministry's Penitentiary Board.
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