More than 7,000 Turkish prisoners have been released under a controversial amnesty law expected to halve the population in Turkey's overcrowded and unruly jails, the justice minister said Sunday.
Hikmet Sami Turk said that 6,904 convictees and 129 detainees had been freed as of Saturday, according to Anatolia news agency.
The releases, which started Friday, were continuing amid widespread public criticism that hundreds of criminals are walking free.
About half of Turkey's 72,000 inmates are expected to be released under the amnesty.
President Ahmet Necdet Sezer had first vetoed the bill as unfair, but he approved it last Thursday after parliament passed it for a second time with no changes.
The government says the amnesty will facilitate a comprehensive prison reform, under which current dormitories housing up to 60 inmates will be replaced with cells for three people at most.
The project sparked massive hunger strikes by hundreds of inmates.
Security forces raided the jails earlier this week in a nationwide crackdown that ended with the death of 26 prisoners and two soldiers.
The amnesty law reduced jail terms by 10 years, including those for murder, and suspended ongoing cases against people on charges which carry sentences of up to 10 years.
It also suspended prison sentences of up to 12 years for offences relating to freedom of expression in the media or at public meetings.
The legislation also saved Turkey's banned Islamist leader Necmettin Erbakan from entering jail in January to serve a one-year sedition sentence for pro-Kurdish and pro-Islamist remarks in a 1994 election campaign. Excluded from its scope are those convicted or facing charges of incitement, corruption, drug trafficking, money laundering, rape, fraud, mafia-related crimes as well as separatism as is the case of condemned Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan -- ANKARA (AFP)
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