Amnesty International Report 1998 - Kyrgyzstan

(This report covers the period January-December 1997) Four prisoners of conscience were detained. There were allegations of torture and ill-treatment by law enforcement officials. At least four people were sentenced to death and 26 executions were reported. In October President Askar Akayev signed into law a new Criminal Code to take effect in 1998 which reduced the number of crimes which carry the death penalty to six and decriminalized homosexual acts between consenting adult men. In February Kyrgyzstan acceded to the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, and in September to the UN Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. Four prisoners of conscience were detained during the year. In January Topchubek Turgunaliyev, a leading opposition political activist, was sentenced to 10 years' imprisonment after being convicted of three offences relating to payments he authorized in 1994 as rector of the Humanities University in Bishkek, the capital. He had been detained since December 1996. On appeal in February only the charge of "abuse of authority" was upheld by the Supreme Court which replaced the 10-year prison term with a sentence of four years' confinement in a low-security penitentiary. Topchubek Turgunaliyev was apparently intended to be allowed to live in his home in Bishkek. In early March, however, Topchubek Turgunaliyev was taken to a low-security penitentiary in Arka, Osh Region, several hundred kilometres from Bishkek, apparently because he had taken part in opposition political gatherings in Bishkek following his release. Conditions at the penitentiary were believed to be harsh, and in June Topchubek Turgunaliyev was reported to be in very poor health. He was allowed to return to Bishkek in November. Topchubek Turgunaliyev had previously been held as a prisoner of conscience between December 1995 and April 1996 on charges which included "defaming" and "insulting" the President (see Amnesty International Report 1997) During the February hearing of Topchubek Turgunaliyev's appeal, police detained Tursunbek Akunov, a well-known human rights defender, and Chynybek Aitkulov, an opposition political activist, for their involvement in a picket of the Supreme Court. Chynybek Aitkulov was quickly released on ill- health grounds, but Tursunbek Akunov was sentenced by a district court judge to 24 hours' administrative arrest for "organizing an unsanctioned meeting". The Supreme Court overturned the conviction in March. Also in March journalist Yrysbek Omurzakov was detained and charged with criminal libel following publication of an article in the newspaper Res Publika which criticized the government's privatization policies and alleged corrupt practices in their implementation. The trial, which opened in May in a Bishkek district court, was halted after three days when the judge referred the case for reinvestigation. Yrysbek Omurzakov was released on bail in June after a hearing in the City Court, but the charges against him remained outstanding. At a retrial in a Bishkek district court in September he was sentenced to 30 months' imprisonment for criminal libel. Yrysbek Omurzakov had previously been held as a prisoner of conscience between April and July 1996 on a charge of "defamation" of the President (see Amnesty International Report 1997); the two-year suspended sentence passed on him in July 1996 became active as a result of his latest conviction and formed part of his current 30-month sentence. However, he remained at liberty pending appeal and in November he was amnestied by Bishkek City Court. In May Zamira Sydykova, editor-in-chief of Res Publika, and Aleksandr Alyanchikov, a journalist on the paper, were each sentenced to 18 months' imprisonment for criminal libel. The charge related to articles published between 1993 and 1996 which criticized the president of the state-owned gold company and the Governor of Talas Region. In an appeal in June, Bishkek City Court suspended the sentence on Aleksandr Alyanchikov, ordering his release from custody, but banned him from journalism for 18 months. Zamira Sydykova's conviction was left unchanged. In August, she was released by order of the Supreme Court. The Court confirmed the earlier verdict on only one point, that Zamira Sydykova had libelled the Governor of Talas Region in 1993, an offence for which she had apparently already served a sentence imposed in 1995. There were allegations of torture and ill-treatment by law-enforcement officials. Tursunbek Akunov stated that he was beaten by a police officer during arrest. It was not known whether the allegation was officially investigated. There were reports that four people had filed complaints in July 1996 against officers of the October District police department in Bishkek. The complainants alleged that they had been severely beaten while held in overnight custody. Medical examinations reportedly showed injuries consistent with the allegations, including concussion, cuts and bruising and, in one case, a fractured collar bone. The status of the investigation into the complaints was not known at the end of the year. At least four death sentences were passed during the year and at least 26 executions were carried out. Full statistics on the application of the death penalty in 1996 became available: 51 death sentences were passed, of which two were commuted, and 15 executions were carried out. In April Amnesty International wrote to Prime Minister Apas Dzhumagulov urging that human rights principles as set out in international standards be fully incorporated into any new state program on law and order. Also in April, Amnesty International wrote to the authorities expressing concern at a proposed extension in the scope of the death penalty to cover large-scale drug possession, arguing that there was no evidence to suggest that extending the death penalty would solve drug-related crime and calling for any such project to be dropped; the new criminal code adopted in October did not include this as a capital offence. The organization reiterated its calls for commutation of all death sentences and for total abolition of the death penalty. In May Amnesty International published a report, Kyrgyzstan: Prisoners of conscience back on trial, in which it called for the immediate and unconditional release of Topchubek Turgunaliyev and Yrysbek Omurzakov, and for criminal proceedings against Yrysbek Omurzakov to be dropped. The organization expressed concern that charges of defamation continued to be used inappropriately to stifle criticism of public officials, or to intimidate those who voiced legitimate concerns about the actions of public officials (see Amnesty International Report 1997). Amnesty International also expressed concern at continuing reports of serious human rights violations by law enforcement officials, including alleged torture and ill-treatment of criminal suspects.