{"id":14834,"date":"2020-01-03T06:49:27","date_gmt":"2020-01-03T06:49:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.iwacu-burundi.org\/englishnews\/?p=14834"},"modified":"2020-01-03T06:49:27","modified_gmt":"2020-01-03T06:49:27","slug":"detainees-rights-association-concerned-over-presidential-pardon-process","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.iwacu-burundi.org\/englishnews\/detainees-rights-association-concerned-over-presidential-pardon-process\/","title":{"rendered":"Detainees\u2019 rights association concerned over presidential pardon process"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Jean Marie Nshimirimana, Chairman of a local NGO \u00ab SPF-Ntabariza \u00bb involved in the defense of detainees\u2019 rights says the presidential pardon process has some irregularities. \u201cDetainees who have been asked to pay a fine amounting over BIF 1,150,000 remain in prison even though they have been sentenced to five years in prison.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_14835\" style=\"width: 506px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-14835\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\" wp-image-14835\" src=\"https:\/\/www.iwacu-burundi.org\/englishnews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/Jean-Marie-Nshimirimana-r\u00e9presentant-l\u00e9gal-NTABARIZA.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"496\" height=\"285\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.iwacu-burundi.org\/englishnews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/Jean-Marie-Nshimirimana-r\u00e9presentant-l\u00e9gal-NTABARIZA.jpg 800w, https:\/\/www.iwacu-burundi.org\/englishnews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/Jean-Marie-Nshimirimana-r\u00e9presentant-l\u00e9gal-NTABARIZA-300x173.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.iwacu-burundi.org\/englishnews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/Jean-Marie-Nshimirimana-r\u00e9presentant-l\u00e9gal-NTABARIZA-768x442.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.iwacu-burundi.org\/englishnews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/Jean-Marie-Nshimirimana-r\u00e9presentant-l\u00e9gal-NTABARIZA-600x345.jpg 600w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 496px) 100vw, 496px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-14835\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Jean Marie Nshimirimana: \u00ab Some judicial officials hamper the presidential pardon process\u201d<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Many of them have to pay more than the fixed fine\u201d, he says. Mr. Nshimirimana reacted to President Pierre Nkurunziza\u2019s address to the nation, on December 31. He said the presidential pardon will be granted in 2020 to the detainees sentenced to five years\u2019 imprisonment following the Article 114 of the Constitution. They include pregnant and breastfeeding women, detainees living with physical disabilities and those who have served half of their sentence. \u201cThe presidential pardon criteria will depend on the kind of the offenses committed and how they behave in prison,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Jean Marie Nshimirimana says some judges hamper the presidential pardon execution and keep detainees in prison. \u201cHow can a poor simple citizen from Cendajuru commune for instance, should be asked to pay a fine of about BIF 100 million, hope to be released?\u201d he wonders adding that the decision also affects their families.<br \/>\nHe says that the increase of prosecutions and prosecutors in different localities of the country has contributed to the increase of detainees in prison. \u201cThe Minister of Justice should facilitate the conditional liberation process to reduce the number of detainees,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n<p>Nshimirimana expects that the presidential pardon process announced for 2020 will differ from the previous one. \u201cWe hope that all the irregularities will be avoided in 2020,\u201d he says.<br \/>\nThe chairman of \u201cSPF-Ntabariza\u201d organization says 3,219 detainees were released in 2019 thanks to the presidential pardon. Burundi has 12,000 detainees in 11 prisons and two centers of reeducation throughout the country including Mpimba central prison which has today 4000 detainees instead of 800.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Jean Marie Nshimirimana, Chairman of a local NGO \u00ab SPF-Ntabariza \u00bb involved in the defense of detainees\u2019 rights says the presidential pardon process has some irregularities. \u201cDetainees who have been asked to pay a fine amounting over BIF 1,150,000 remain in prison even though they have been sentenced to five years in prison. Many of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":14835,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[14],"tags":[113,1257],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iwacu-burundi.org\/englishnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14834"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iwacu-burundi.org\/englishnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iwacu-burundi.org\/englishnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iwacu-burundi.org\/englishnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iwacu-burundi.org\/englishnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14834"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.iwacu-burundi.org\/englishnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14834\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14836,"href":"https:\/\/www.iwacu-burundi.org\/englishnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14834\/revisions\/14836"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iwacu-burundi.org\/englishnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14835"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iwacu-burundi.org\/englishnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14834"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iwacu-burundi.org\/englishnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14834"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iwacu-burundi.org\/englishnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14834"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}