Leaked:
Pussy Riot, Greenpeace activists will be freed under amnesty
The
members of the Pussy Riot punk band, Greenpeace activists and
protesters jailed after the May 2012 Bolotnaya demonstration will be
freed in an amnesty dedicated to the 20th anniversary of the Russian
Constitution, Russian media report.
RT,
9
December, 2013
A
total of 25,000 people will be freed under the amnesty initiated by
President Putin, Interfax cited Vladimir Vasilyev, deputy speaker of
parliament, as saying.
“Around
1,300 people will be released from prison, and 17,500 people will be
relieved of non-custodial sentences. In addition, criminal
proceedings against nearly 6,000 can be terminated,” Vasilyev said.
Several
Russian media outlets including Izvestia and Vedomosti newspapers
have obtained a copy of the draft amnesty, which was submitted to the
parliament by President Vladimir Putin on Monday.
According
to the papers, the participants in such high-profile cases as the
Pussy Riot Cathedral protest, Greenpeace’s Arctic Sunrise boarding
of an oil rig and the Bolotnaya Square riots will all be granted
amnesty.
The
upcoming amnesty won’t apply to those who committed crimes that
posed a serious danger to society, Vladimir Vasilyev said, adding
that the amnesty will give preference to convicts in vulnerable
social categories and people who have served the country.
It
will favor all minors, mothers with small children, pregnant women,
women over 55 and men over 60, the disabled, Chernobyl cleanup
workers and military veterans, he said.
According
to Vedomosti newspaper, the draft amnesty covers three articles of
the criminal code “as an exception,” which means that those, who
were convicted under them, will be freed or relived from punishment
regardless of age, sex and social status.
The
first such article Number 213 is “hooliganism”, which means that
two Pussy Riot members – Maria Alekhina and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova
– as well as the Greenpeace’s activists, awaiting trial in
Russia, will a get pardon.
Three
members of the Pussy Riot punk band were each sentenced to two years
in prison after staging a protest in Moscow's Christ the Savior
Cathedral in February 2012, although one member of the band was later
released on appeal.
The
30 Greenpeace activists are currently on bail and awaiting trial
after an attempt to board Russia’s Prirazlomnaya oil platform in
the Barents Sea this September.
The
second exception stands for article 212 (parts 2 and 3) -
"participation in riots and attempts to incite rioting."
It
means that nine protesters, who were detained following Moscow riots
on Bolotnaya Square in May 2012, but who are not accused of using
force against police, will be also freed under amnesty.
The
third exception deals with those, who were convicted for violating
traffic regulation with severe consequences to people’s health.
Meanwhile,
those, who committed economic crimes, won’t be pardoned as there
has already been an amnesty for this category of prisoners earlier
this year, with 1,431 people released, Izvestia said.
This
means that former oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky and his business
partner, Platon Lebedev, will remain behind bars.
The
amnesty will be adopted before the end of the year and implemented
within the next six months, a high-ranked source in the parliament
told Izvestia.
Russia
celebrates the 20th anniversary of the country’s Constitution on
December 12.
The
head of the Presidential Council on Civil Society and Human Rights,
Mikhail Fedotov, expressed his satisfaction with the draft amnesty
bill and said hoped it wouldn't suffer heavy revisions by the Duma
deputies.
“I’m
sure that there’ll be some MPs, who’ll try to widen the amnesty
bill and those, who’ll push for it to be narrowed. In the end, I
hope that it’ll remain as it was when submitted by the President,”
he told RIA-Novosti news agency.
But
one of the heads of Memorial human rights center, Oleg Orlov, has
called the draft amnesty bill a disappointment.
“Even
in its current form, I welcome the document. At least, some people
will be released,” he told Interfax news agency. “But that part
of Russian society, which advocated an amnesty, understand it in a
broader sense, and of course we are disappointed."
President
Putin tasked human rights activists with putting together a draft
bill for an amnesty dedicated to the 20th anniversary of the
country’s modern Constitution in late September.
In
mid-October, the draft bill, which proposed to pardon around 100,000
prisoners, was approved by the Presidential Council for Human Rights.
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