First Lady: Amnesty over Heydar Aliyev anniversary greatly symbolic (UPDATE)
By Gulgiz Dadashova
Azerbaijan's parliament unanimously passed an amnesty bill covering 9,000 prisoners at a special meeting on Tuesday timed to the 90th anniversary of the national leader Heydar Aliyev.
The amnesty act was initiated by Azerbaijani First Lady, President of the Heydar Aliyev Foundation, MP Mehriban Aliyeva.
Addressing the Milli Majlis session, Mrs. Aliyeva said the amnesty act being discussed was an act of forgiveness.
"Passing such a law on the eve of Heydar Aliyev's 90th anniversary has a great symbolic value," she said.
The First Lady added that after Heydar Aliyev was elected Azerbaijan's President in 1993, he forgave most of these people and thus once again confirmed his greatness by the ability to forgive.
"As a member of his family, I would like to say that Heydar Aliyev was a noble, generous and humane person," she said. "He had ordinary and fair attitude towards ordinary people though he faced injustice, treachery and betrayal in different periods of his life. Even people, whom he promoted once, made groundless attacks on him in this hall. But he forgave most of them."
Mrs. Aliyeva went on to say that the memory about this great politician, the founder of modern Azerbaijan, will live on in the heart of every Azerbaijani thanks to his Azerbaijani philosophy, heritage of statehood and enormous efforts.
Mehriban Aliyeva believes that much can be changed for the better in the world thanks to forgiveness, good will and generosity.
"The amnesty act will affect about 9,000 prisoners, and more than 2,000 of them will be released," Aliyeva said.
"I am sure that the released individuals will realize their mistakes, meet with their families, find their place in society and will not make mistakes in the future," she said.
The amnesty law will see the release of women who do not pose a serious threat to society or those who committed less grave crimes; under-18 criminals, disabled people of the first and second category; men over 60; those who have custody of underage children or disabled children of the first and second category; those who contributed to the protection of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Azerbaijan; those who were expelled from their homeland as a result of the Armenian occupation of a part of Azerbaijan's territory, as well as prisoners of other categories.
The law will also apply to the persons whose unserved term of imprisonment is below a year, those sentenced to corrective and community work, persons who were fined, those whose imprisonment was postponed, and those who were issued a suspended sentence.
Initiated by the Heydar Aliyev Foundation, the parliament of Azerbaijan adopted amnesty acts on May 8, 2007 and March 17, 2009, which applied to 9,877 and 9,564 prisoners respectively. The amnesty acts, which fostered re-integration of criminals into the society, evoked wide public welcome and support.
Chairman of the Parliamentary Committee on Legal Policy and State Building Ali Huseynli, for his part, said that the society welcomes this amnesty act.
He said that the submission of this bill by the Heydar Aliyev Foundation is welcomed by society, as today the Foundation is the best successor of the national leader of Azerbaijan in understanding of the people.
Huseynli said that the timing of the amnesty act to the 90th anniversary of Heydar Aliyev is not accidental.
"Just after Heydar Aliyev's return to power in 1993, he restored the significance of institutions such as a pardon and amnesty," he said.
Huseynli added that for many years, Azerbaijan has had better statistics than other CIS countries for the number of prisoners per 100,000 people, which is close to that of Europe.