(Ahlul Bayt News Agency) - Turkmenistan has pardoned more than 1,000 prisoners, including 35 foreign citizens, in celebration of a national holiday in the reclusive former Soviet republic, state television reported on Friday.
President Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov was shown telling a government meeting that all of those pardoned should be allowed home to their families for the holiday. He also ordered that jobs be found for all of those released.
"Criminals who have sincerely repented are regularly pardoned in our country," state television showed Berdymukhamedov, a qualified dentist embarking on his second term as president, telling the meeting.
The broadcast did not identify the nationality of the foreigners released.
Turkmenistan, a Central Asian state of 5.5 million people that holds more than 4 percent of the world's natural gas reserves, is regularly ranked by human rights groups as one of the most repressive countries in the world.
Official data on the number of prisoners in Turkmenistan are not available. Every year thousands of prison inmates are amnestied on big national holidays, a tradition that began under the rule of Berdymukhamedov's predecessor, Saparmurat Niyazov.
Though Berdymukhamedov has promised greater economic freedom since coming to power after Niyazov's sudden death in 2006, he holds virtually unlimited powers and has embraced a rising cult of personality.
Known as Arkadag, or The Patron, Berdymukhamedov secured five more years as president in February by winning 97 percent of the vote in an election shunned by OSCE observers for a lack of competition.
The country allowed a Red Cross delegation to visit one of its prisons in April, the first such visit since independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.
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19 May 2012 - 04:56
News ID: 316134
Turkmenistan has pardoned more than 1,000 prisoners, including 35 foreign citizens, in celebration of a national holiday in the reclusive former Soviet republic, state television reported on Friday.
