Families of convicted july 1 teenagers plead amnesty from President N.Enkhbayar

Last week, Mongolian President N.Enkhbayar met with the families of teenagers sentenced in conjunction with the July 1 riot at the State Palace.

The meeting, attended by representatives from National Center for Children, High Commission of Human Rights, and lawyers, hoped that the President, as Head of State, may show some amnesty to those children. Over 700 people were arrested during the July 1 riot, and around 200 of them were reported to be under-aged teenagers. 66 teenagers have been released during the police investigation after the mass arrest. However, the court trials on the remaining teenagers are ongoing at different district courts of Ulaanbaatar.

So far, the Ulaanbaatar courts have tried cases of 32 teenagers, and 14 of them have already been sentenced by court up to seven years of imprisonment in jail. Most of those teenagers—all male except one female—were found guilty in robberies during the violence.

President N.Enkhbayar said at the meeting that anyone who commits a crime should be held responsible for it. “Guilty verdicts must be legally upheld, regardless of the age of the person involved,” Enkhbayar said. He also stated that presidential amnesty can only be given after considering detailed research on a case-by-case basis, and is rarely applied to large numbers of people. Replying to specific requests from the parents present, Enkhbayar promised to study the possibility of freeing those teenagers, especially first-time criminals and females, under an amnesty law, though he warned that such a law would take time to discuss, and would need an approval by Parliament.

But both parents and lawyers were convinced that the convicted children were innocent, and just happened to be at the wrong place and the wrong time. “On that day, a three-day public outdoor event for the anniversary of Darkhan’s metallurgical plant was scheduled to be held at the main square,” said M.Togtokhnyam, senior officer of National Center for Children. “Those convicted children said that they were headed for that shows, and some said that they came at the square after watching the unrest live on TV.”


The children’s rights organizations and parents believe that the children behaved immaturely because of their young age and inexperience, and that children have no political leanings to indicate premeditation. Thus, court penalties fall harder on teenagers who may not have had criminal intentions. But President Enkhbayar stressed that such behavior proves only lack of attention on education by parents and educators.

Many of the parents told their personal stories to President Enkhbayar. “My son is 17 years old,” one mother said. “He studies in a high school. A man, who identified himself as an intelligence officer, asked my son to help carrying copy machines out of a building. Just because of this help, my son was sentenced to seven years in jail.” Another father said that his son helped a man to carry a desktop computer out of a building on fire.

Soyol-Erdene, a lawyer who attended the meeting, said “Mongolia has been a part of the UN International Convention for Children’s Rights for 19 years, and this involvement has emphasized different ways of correctional measures in Mongolia other than strict imprisonment. The President of Mongolia has large constitutionally-granted powers, and we wish he would use those powers to free those innocent children.”

Another lawyer told the President that a court sentenced some of the teenagers, even though their cases had no definitive evidence to produce a guilty verdict. Though the President made no certain promises during last week’s meeting, it is clear that both the families of the children involved and children’s rights organizations will not rest until they feel true justice has been served.