DUSHANBE, July 4, 2011, Asia-Plus -- An amnesty law will be adopted on occasion of the 20th anniversary of Tajikistan’s Independence, a well-informed source at the government told Asia-Plus today.

“Initiated by President Emomali Rahmon, the draft law will probably be submitted for consideration to the lower chamber (Majlisi Namoyandagon) of the parliament in late July or early August,” said the source, “Although the parliament has already gone into summer recess, the president has the constitutional right to convoke an extraordinary session of both chambers for consideration of the bill.”

We will recall that the last amnesty law was adopted in Tajikistan in November 2009 on occasion of the 15th anniversary of Tajikistan’s Constitution, which is marked on November 6, and Year of Imam Azam in Tajikistan.  The amnesty applied on a certain categories of prison inmates and citizens whose criminal cases were still under investigation and in courts.

The 2009 amnesty applied on female convicts, elderly, minors and sick prisoners, who were serving sentences for minor crimes, as well as veterans of the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945, participants in the cleanup operation at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant and foreign citizens.  The amnesty excluded those serving sentences for serious crimes such as terrorism and extremism, killing two and more people, recidivists or those who committed crimes in prison.

The previous amnesty, which marked the 10th anniversary of the end of the civil war in Tajikistan, was announced in Tajikistan in June 2007 and 6,731 people were released under the amnesty announced in June 2007.