Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders Annual Report 2003 - Kyrgyzstan

Harassment of KCHR continues³⁷

On 12th, February 2003, while the European Parliament was in session, Mr. Ramazan Dyryldaev, president of the Kyrgyz Committee for Human Rights (KCHR), criticized the President of the Kyrgyz Republic. Following his declarations, the pressure exerted on Mr. Dyryldaev and the KCHR increased significantly.

Thus, on 26th March 2003, former members of the Committee, accompanied by uniformed officers from the Ministry of the Interior and National Security, burst into the offices of the KCHR in Bichkek. The employees who were present in the offices were able to prevent them from taking away computers and files.

From 29th March to 10th April, Mr. Dyryldaev's office and home were placed under surveillance, as were the homes of family members where he had taken refuge. On 21st April, after former members of the KCHR had accused the Committee President of embezzlement, officers from the Organized Economic Crime Unit (GUBEP) burst into the home of Mr. Vladimir Tihonov, member of the KCHR, and asked him about Mr. Dyryldaev's whereabouts.

Moreover, on 13th August, in a letter signed by the Deputy Minister of Justice, Mr. Alymbaev, the Minister ordered the KCHR to file a new application for registration within ten days. The Minister, in fact, stated that certain clauses in the Committee's Charter, which had been registered in August 1999, contravened both the new Constitution adopted on 2nd February 2003 and the law concerning "non-commercial organizations", adopted on 15th October 1999.

On 25th August 2003, during a press conference which neither the activists nor the members of the KCHR board of directors attended, Messrs. Tynaliev, Mombekov and Jakishev,³⁸ all three former members of the Committee, announced Mr. Dyryldaev's dismissal from his position as president of the KCHR. Without any consultation and despite the fact that Mr. Dyryldaev had been duly re-elected on 11th May 2003 by the active members of the association, Mr. Tynaliev was appointed president of the KCHR.

At the end of that press conference, Mr. Tynaliev violently attacked Mr. Dyryldaev's son, Mr. Giyaz Tokombaev, before calling him at home and threatening to kill him. He stated that he enjoyed the support of the Solicitor General, the presidential administration and the secret services and added that, with this support, he would confiscate all of Mr. Dyryldaev's belongings.

On 24th September 2003, the deputy minister of Justice, Mr. Alymbekov, informed the KCHR that the new board of directors, consisting of Messrs. Tynaliev, Jakishev and Bulatov, had been recognized by the minister. This newly constituted KCHR was officially registered on 28th November 2003.

Since the authorities have taken the KCHR in charge, Mr. Dyryldaev and his colleagues have been receiving intimidating letters on a regular basis and have been the targets of recurring campaigns of defamation and harassment intended to discredit them both within the country and on an international scale. For example, during the OSCE annual conference on the implementation of human dimension, which was held in Warsaw from 6th-17th October 2003, he was publicly accused of embezzlement and corruption by the false KCHR management. On 16th November, that same false management also accused the general assembly of the Helsinki Federation for Human Rights of "covering up Mr. Dyryldaev's fiscal fraud" by refusing to recognize the new board of directors.

The KCHR is still being threatened with legal action. On 6th October, Mr. Bulatov threatened to take legal action against Mr. Fomenko, a colleague of Mr. Dyryldaev who had called the members of the new board of directors "imposters", and confiscate all of his belongings. Moreover, on 9th October, the vice-president of the new association, Mr. Mombekov, threatened to take legal action against Mr. Dyryldaev if he did not turn over the association's belongings to Mr. Mombekov and if he persisted in using the association's name in documents intended for the international community.

In 2000, the KCHR had already been the object of similar maneuvering on the part of the authorities, who had set up a new association with the same name in an obvious effort to paralyze the advocates' activities.

Mr. Dyryldaev, who lived in exile from 2000 to 2002, definitively left the country on 26th May 2003 after members of the security services confirmed that an order had been issued to assassinate him.

[Refworld note: This report as posted on the FIDH website (www.fidh.org) was in pdf format with country chapters run together by region. Footnote numbers have been retained here, so do not necessarily begin at 1.]

37. See Urgent Appeals KGZ 001/0403/OBS 020, KGZ 002/0803/OBS 044, KGZ 002/0803/OBS 044.1 and KGZ 002/0803/OBS 044.2.

38. Mr. Tynaliev voluntarily left the KCHR in 2002. Messrs. Mombekov and Jakishev were dismissed.