Press release, photos, 23.10.2013

On October 22, Andrei Babushkin, member of the YABLOKO party and member of the Presidium of the Human Rights Council (HRC) under President, and Valery Borschyov, and member of YABLOKO’s Political Committee and head of the Public Monitoring Commission of Moscow, and experts took part in the panel discussion “Why Amnesty-2013 Should Be Conducted on a Broad Scale”. While the final text of the amnesty act to mark the 20th anniversary of the Russian Constitution is not submitted to the State Duma, human rights defenders say that it is important to explain why the amnesty act should include the maximum number of prisoners.

“We would like those who have been against the amnesty act or are indifferent to it, would take our [pro-amnesty] side,” Andrei Babushkin said in the beginning of the event.

According to Babushkin, the act of amnesty is needed for several reasons: first, to correct judicial errors that occur in the Russian judicial system, and second, to reduce the number of prisoners so that to conduct a full-fledged reform.

“Today, we increasingly often hear that prisons are allegedly not overcrowded, but, unfortunately, this is not the case, for example, Remand Prison No 4 which I supervise has been overcrowded by 15 per cent as of today. Often, in cells made for three persons people are forced to sleep on cots [as there are no vacant beds] which is not envisaged by the federal law. This situation can be corrected only in one way; by amnesty,” Babushkin noted.

Babushkin also noted that there were some notorious myths about amnesty: that a broad amnesty would allegedly lead to a situation when hundreds of thousands of people would be released into nowhere, that this would allegedly lead to an increase in crime in Russia and hardened criminals would be released.

“All of these myths are absolutely ungrounded, as the amnesty does not target at the release of all the prisoners. But a large number of prisoners should have their term on imprisonment reduced,” Babushkin added.

Andrei Babushkin

Valery Borschyov absolutely agreed with Babushkin’s arguments.

“Some time ago former head of the Federal Penitentiary Service Yuri Kalinin said that only 25 per cent out of all the prisoners should be really imprisoned, and I completely agree with this assessment. These should be those who are deeply mired in crime, committed repeated offences and already do not imagine themselves out of this. But all the other prisoners are either victims of circumstances or participants domestic conflicts, and imprisonment does not bring anything good for them,” Borschyov noted.

Valery Borschyov and Andrei Babushkin

According to Borschyov, the saying that “a thief should sit in the jail” marks a wrong way. Even in the economic terms it turns out that the maintenance of a person who stole 10 rubles amounts to tens of thousands roubles. Consequently, a thief costs to the state far more than the damage he/she inflicted. This is wrong. And the amnesty is one way to fix it.

“A delinquent will be released sooner or later. But the problem is what person will be released: either an impenitent hard-core criminal or a person with whom you can work,” Borschyov concluded.