DUSHANBE, October 11, Asia-Plus -- 3,960 people, including 252 women, 20 minors and 108 foreign citizens, have been released under Tajikistan’s amnesty law this year, according to the penal system in the Ministry of Justice (MoJ). 

Amnestied prisoners have been released in stages after a review of their cases.  50 prisoners were released recently, concluding the amnesty, a source in a MoJ said.  

Some of the prisoners were granted partial amnesty, in which the prisoner’s sentence is reduced.  Pulod Alibakhshev, an official with the MoJ penal system department, said that 2,457 prisoners had been granted partial amnesty so far.   Alibakhshev added that the partial amnesty procedure is still under way.  

According to the MoJ, before the adoption of the amnesty law, 12,000 prisoners were in jails in Tajikistan.  At present some 8,000 prisoners are in jails in Tajikistan; of them, 5,000 are in correction colonies and criminal cases of 3,000 others are still under consideration.  In all, five pretrial detention facilities and 11 correction colonies in the country.

The previous amnesty law adopted in Tajikistan in 2001, and some 10,000 prisoners were released that year under the amnesty law.