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Russia to pardon more than 300,000 convicts
Published: 22 March, 2010, 22:34
Edited: 24 March, 2010, 21:46
TAGS: Anniversary, Crime, Medvedev, Law, Prime Time Russia
A record number of convicts could be released from Russian prisons ahead of the 65th Victory Day festivities in a presidential initiative to make the penal system more humane.
A new law being considered by parliament would open the door to the pardoning of war veterans, people with disabilities and those with minor criminal records.
If the law is passed, Russia will grant its largest amnesty ever – the previous record was set in 2000, when 200,000 people were allowed to walk free.
As 300,000 inmates make up almost a third of the entire Russian prison population, wide-reaching effects on the prison system are expected.
The criteria for those who are going to be illegible for the amnesty are very strict. Among the inmates included in the list are World War II veterans, minor offenders, first-time offenders, juveniles, the disabled, pregnant women, and single parents. Serious offenders, such as murderers, rapists, violent criminals, and economic criminals, will stay inside.
The amnesty would become part of a sweeping prison reform announced by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev earlier this year, when Russian authorities acknowledged that the poor state of the prison system requires urgent action.
However, Sonja Zekri, editor in chief of Germany’s Suddeutsche Zeitung newspaper, is far from optimistic about the forthcoming reform.
“Medvedev has been trying to show himself as a reformer of the whole legal and penal system, but for me, it’s rather a capitulation, admitting that the legal system doesn’t work at all,” Zekri told RT. “If you look at criminal trials, the numbers are terrible. If you are accused of a criminal offense, in 99.9% of the cases you are convicted. As soon as you are on trial, you have no chance.”
“So far, there is no reform. He is releasing people who ended up in prison because the legal system is the way it is. From the humanitarian side, the amnesty is nice, but not if we talk about the reform of the legal system,” Zekri added.
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Thousands of these convicts and thousands of abandoned children from the street, could participate in a national program for colonisation in the Siberian East, next to the border with China, in some of the dozens of abandoned valleys and regions. For such a goal coordination would be needed, new villages would be created where children and convicts can build together new homes for themselves, create villages and farms, build schools, churches and create business, first between them and with next border Chinese villages, where both can offer something to each other. After all Australia was built that way...
For the new colonisation of Siberia, some of the villages could follow the example of the Israeli´s kibutz while others could foster a more private way of life. What they will have in common is that the majority of the population would be former convicts and street children (first of all from Moscow and St. Petersburg) who decided freely to participate in the national program. Time will tell what kind of village is the most successful, and who are the leaders who create a better enviroment for the development of the village and the Siberian region where they are placed. Some villages will prosper and bring immigrants both from the rest of Russia as from foreign countries. Other villages will fail and will be abandoned becoming ghost towns. It will be important that the colonists feel they are building something big, by themselves and for themselves; that they are the owners and from them depends the future of the project.