Azerbaijan, Baku, 19 March / Trend corr G. Jabiyev/ According to the Pardon Commission attached to the Azerbaijani Presidential Administration, pardon of jailed journalists is currently impossible from the legal point of view. "Names of the journalists were not included in the pardon list which was submitted to the President," Azay Guliyev, the member of the Pardon Commission said to journalists on 19 March.
On 18 March, Azerbaijan's President signed a pardon decree pertaining to the Novruz Holiday. The list includes 59 people and 58 of them have been released and the prison term of one was reduced to half.
Three journalists are imprisoned in Azerbaijan.
Guliyev said that the Pardon Commission is operating in accordance with its Charter. The Charter does not envisage concessions to representatives of any profession. The Commission considers the court verdict to be acceptable. As the jailed journalists have not spent a half of their prison term, their pardon cannot be discussed now.
The President has not made any changes in the lists submitted by the Commission so far.
Since 1995, the presidential pardon decrees, including the aforementioned one, were applied to 4,762 prisoners.