YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 22, ARMENPRESS. The parliamentary committee on human rights and social affairs has summoned Minister of Justice Artak Zeynalyan for a briefing on February 22.

Zeynalyan presented figures regarding prisoners currently housed at correctional facilities in Armenia.

“Back in May [2018], the government had put a task before me to solve the overpopulation problem at correction facilities, and this problem was solved already before declaring clemency,” he said, referring to the government-granted pardon in early November 2018.

“We can house up to 5300 prisoners at correctional facilities. Today, there are 2266 convicts and detainees at correctional facilities, 963 of whom are detainees, and 1303 are convicted prisoners. 10 convicts are currently on hunger strike,” he said.

He emphasized that the pardon’s purpose was not related to mitigating the prison overpopulation issue.

Edited and translated by Stepan Kocharyan