amnesty

plural amnesties

1. countableuncountableForgetfulness; cessation of remembrance of wrong; oblivion.
2. countableuncountableAn act of the sovereign power granting oblivion, or a general pardon, for a past offense, as to subjects concerned in an insurrection.

   He said building amnesties were “a huge issue.”

   2023 February 11, Christian Edwards and Lauren Said-Moorhouse, “Quake-hit Turkey and Syria face years of rebuilding. Experts say it didn’t have to be this way”, in CNN, archived from the original on 25 Mar 2023

   2 more examples

   Argentina has seen few legal issues as contentiously debated as these two laws of amnesty during the last two decades. […] Pursuant to the Convention on Forced Disappearance, amnesties may not contemplate a statutory limitation period less than that corresponding to the gravest crime punishable by domestic laws, provided there is a pre-existing domestic norm of “fundamental character” requiring that limitation.

   Fall 2007, Gaspar Forteza, “Regarding Simón y otros: Accountability in Argentina and International Human Rights as Domestic Positive Law”, in FIU Law Review, volume 3, number 1, →ISSN, archived from the original on 03 Jul 2020, pages 188, 217-218

   Russian lawmakers backed a sweeping amnesty law Wednesday that could see jailed members of the Pussy Riot punk protest band released early and arrested Greenpeace activists avoiding prison, the state-run RIA Novosti news agency reported.

   2013 December 18, CNN Staff, “Russia amnesty could free Pussy Riot, benefit Greenpeace members”, in CNN, archived from the original on 07 Mar 2021

present singular third person amnesties · participle present amnestying · participle past amnestied · past amnestied

1. transitiveTo grant a pardon (to a group).

   “The number of people that will be amnestied when I’m president is zero,” DeSantis said, when asked if he would allow any of the 10 million to stay in the US.

   2024 January 11, Zachary B. Wolf, quoting Ron DeSantis, “The 2024 primary campaigns have already changed the Republican Party”, in CNN, archived from the original on 12 Mar 2024

   3 more examples

   Shortly after the end of military rule in 1983, the Argentinean National Congress passed legislation that effectively amnestied many persons who allegedly committed human rights violations such as torture, extra-judicial killing, and forced disappearance. […] In other words, a government may be justified in amnestying military actions because the alternative would result in the destruction of the democratic state.

   Fall 2007, Gaspar Forteza, “Regarding Simón y otros: Accountability in Argentina and International Human Rights as Domestic Positive Law”, in FIU Law Review, volume 3, number 1, →ISSN, archived from the original on 03 Jul 2020, pages 187, 229

   “100 miles of border wall in exchange for amnestying millions of illegals. So if we grant citizenship to a BILLION foreigners, maybe we can finally get a full border wall,” Coulter wrote in another tweet.

   2019 January 19, Stephen Collinson and Maegan Vazquez, quoting Ann Coulter, “Trump’s offer of temporary protection for immigrants to end shutdown is a ‘non-starter,’ say Democrats”, in CNN, archived from the original on 08 Nov 2020

   “This is such immoral selectivity,” he added. “Anyone who amnesties Russia and who artificially creates a such informational context where some attacks by terrorists are supposedly justified or supposedly understandable cannot fail to understand that, in doing so, they are helping the terrorists.”

   2022 August 8, Radina Gigova, quoting Volodymyr Zelenskyy, “Amnesty regrets ‘distress’ caused by report on Ukrainian military, but stands by findings”, in CNN, archived from the original on 20 Aug 2022

1. Amnesty International, a UK-based charity.