Amnesty International Report 1994 - Kyrgyzstan

Four death sentences were commuted. Three journalists fleeing from Tadzhikistan were arrested and forcibly repatriated: they were detained and reportedly tortured subsequently. A new Constitution entered into force in May. It incorporates a number of human rights guarantees found in the principal international human rights instruments. The death penalty remained in force for 15 peacetime offences and others in time of war. No death sentences or executions were reported, but four people who had been under sentence of death at the beginning of 1993 had their sentences commuted to 20 years' imprisonment during the year. Three journalists who had fled from neighbouring Tadzhikistan, Akhmadsho Kamilov, Khayriddin Kasymov and Khurshed Nazarov, were arrested in early January in Osh, southern Kyrgyzstan, reportedly by Kyrgyz law enforcement officials. They were forcibly returned to Tadzhikistan, where they were detained and reportedly tortured by Tadzhik officials (see Tadzhikistan entry). Amnesty International continued to call on the government headed by President Askar Akayev to abolish the death penalty. In March Amnesty International wrote to the Minister of Internal Affairs expressing concern about the forcible repatriation of the three Tadzhik journalists and calling on the authorities to ensure that their treatment of asylum-seekers conformed to international standards.