Clemency means the forgiveness of a crime or the cancellation (in whole or in part) of the penalty associated with it. It is a general concept that encompasses several related procedures: pardoning, commutation, remission and reprieves. A pardon is the forgiveness of a crime and the cancellation of the relevant penalty; it is usually granted by a head of state (such as a monarch or president) or by a competent church authority. Commutation or remission is the lessening of a penalty without forgiveness for the crime; the beneficiary is still considered guilty of the offense. A reprieve is the temporary postponement of punishment.

Today, pardons are granted in many countries when individuals have demonstrated that they have fulfilled their debt to society, or are otherwise considered to be deserving. Pardons are sometimes offered to persons who are wrongfully convicted or claim they have been wrongfully convicted. Some believe accepting such a pardon implicitly constitutes an admission of guilt, so in some cases the offer is refused. Cases of wrongful conviction are nowadays more often dealt with by appeal than by pardon however, a pardon is sometimes offered when innocence is undisputed to avoid the costs of a retrial. Clemency plays a very important role when capital punishment is applied.

Ferhan Şensoy (born February 26, 1951) is a prominent Turkish playwright, actor and stage director.

Ferhan Şensoy was born in Çarşamba, Samsun Province, where he attended Gazi Osman Paşa Preliminary School. His mother, Müjgan Şensoy, was a primary school teacher and his father, Yusuf Cemil Şensoy, was the mayor of Çarşamba. He started his secondary school education at Galatasaray High School in 1961 and completed it in Çarşamba High School in 1970. He started his education ın architectecture at Academy of Fine Arts and interrupted in 1972 when he began his theater training at Ecole supérieure d'art dramatique, Théâtre national de Strasbourg in Strasbourg, France. After his graduation, he returned to Turkey in 1975. He went to Ulaş, Çorlu in 1982 and later Harbiye Orduevi, Şişli, Istanbul in 1982 for his military service, which he completed in 1984.

Şensoy married Derya Baykal in 1988. The couple had their first child, Müjgan Ferhan, in 1989 and their second child, again a daughter, Neriman Derya, in 1990. The couple divorced in 2004.

Tuncel Kurtiz (born 1 February 1936) is a Turkish theatre, movie and TV series actor, playwright and film director. Since 1964, he has acted in more than 70 movies, including many international productions.

He was born in Bilecik, a town in Turkey. His father was a district governor (kaymakam) and his mother a teacher. His parents' occupation was the reason the family toured many places across the country. After graduating from the Haydarpaşa High School in Istanbul, Kurtiz studied English philology at Istanbul University.

He soon started a career as an actor playing theatres. Since 1958, Kurtiz performed on many stages in Istanbul, in state and private theatres. He was also on the stage at Gothenburg City Theatre, Stockholm Royal Thaetre and Swedish Theatre in Sweden, Schaubühne Berlin, Frankfurt City Theatre and Hamburg City Theatre in Germany and at Peter Brook Shakespeare Royal Theatre in England. Kurtiz directed plays for the German-Turkish theatre project "Türkisches Ensemble" in the late 1970s.