Alyaksandr Lukashenka signs law on amnesty at last
Political prisoners will not be amnestied, as it was predicted.
The full name of the law signed on July 9 is "On Amnesty of some categories of persons, who committed crimes". The law was registered in the National Register of Legal Acts on Tuesday, July 10. The official date of publication in July 11.
Let us remind you, the amnesty was dedicated to the July 3 Independence Day. The House of Representatives approved the draft bill in two readings at a time on June 27, the Council of Republic - on June 29. As for signing the law by the state leader, this process was slowed down a bit.
According to the document, about 2 800 people will be released from prisons. More than 33 thousand people are kept in Belarusian prisons at the moment.
Political prisoners will not be amnestied. Alyaksandr Lukashenka claimed this even before the law was approved by the members of the National Assembly. True, it is stated in Article 9 of the new law that the amnesty will not be used with regard to the criminals, convicted for "political" cases:
- art. 293 (mass riots);
- art. 342 (organization and preparation of actions which severely violate public order, or active participation thereof);
- art. 367 (slander against the President of the Republic of Belarus);
- art. 3693 (breaking the order of organization and conducting of mass events).
Human rights defender Valyantsin Stefanovich has noted in a comment to Euroradio that this is the first amnesty which has a clear political component:
"It differs from the previous laws on amnesty exactly due to this political component. They added political articles to the criminal ones which are not covered by the amnesty. Previously, there were no such articles as 342 ("Group actions which severely violate public order"), or "Slander against the President"), in that list. This is because these are not major crimes, and they were put together with such severe and extremely severe crimes like murder, banditism, terrorism".
Photo — n1.by
