Release of the Press Service of the President

Emphasizing the significance of the 100th anniversary of the founder of the modern Azerbaijani state, the esteemed politician and, statesman, National Leader of the Azerbaijani people, Heydar Aliyev, this event marks a milestone in the history of our country. We honor the cherished and everlasting memory of the Great Leader and remain devoted to his rich spiritual legacy, which is founded on universal values, ideals of rule of law and justice. We recall Heydar Aliyev's exceptional contributions to implementing fundamental reforms in building a democratic legal state and his emphasis on safeguarding human rights and freedoms while continuing humanity, compassion, and humanitarian traditions. We believe that individuals to be released from punishment will make valuable contributions to developing prosperity in our independent state and society. Therefore, considering appeals on pardoning from a group of convicted individuals, their family members, the Commissioner for Human Rights of the Republic of Azerbaijan, and human rights organizations, the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan, Mr. Ilham Aliyev, has signed an order "On the Pardoning of a Group of Convicted Persons on the Occasion of the 100th Anniversary of National Leader of the Azerbaijani people Heydar Aliyev" on May 8, 2023.

Under the order, 801 convicts have been granted a pardon. Among these, 463 individuals were released from serving their entire sentence, 220 were released from serving half of the remaining sentence, and 118 were released from other forms of punishment unrelated to imprisonment, such as restriction of liberty, correctional works, etc. fines, or conditional sentence.

At the same time, it should be noted that 14 of the pardoned convicts are foreigners. According to the order, 12 of them were released from the whole sentence and two from half of the sentence. According to the relevant verdicts, the forced removal of four foreign convicts outside the borders of the Republic of Azerbaijan is planned after release. Other foreign convicts are Azerbaijanis by nationality, or their family members are citizens of the Republic of Azerbaijan, so forced removal will not be applied to them.

In addition, 10 convicts were released from punishment based on the appeals of human rights organizations.

Among them were journalist Elchin Mammad, Chairman of the Citizen and Development Party Ali Aliyev, as well as five people convicted in connection with the Tartar events and three people convicted in connection with the Gandja events that occurred in 2018. Considering that those persons have served the major part of their sentences, their behavior during the period of serving their sentence, and their family situation and health, a decision was made to pardon them.

On the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the National Leader of the Azerbaijani people, Heydar Aliyev, the Commission on Pardon Issues under the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan has held 14 meetings since this January, and about 2,400 applications were reviewed at those meetings.

It is worth noting that this pardon order is the most significant of its kind, in terms of the number of people covered, ever adopted in the history of the independent Republic of Azerbaijan. For comparison, the Order on Pardoning dated May 24, 2018, adopted on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic, was applied to 634 convicts.

The Order on Pardoning, adopted on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the National Leader of the Azerbaijani people, Heydar Aliyev, is due to be implemented by May 10.