Amnesty International Report 2000 - Kyrgyzstan

Head of state: Askar Akayev
Head of government: Amangeldy Muraliyev (replaced Jumabek Ibragimov in April)
Capital: Bishkek
Population: 4.6 million
Official language: Kyrgyz
Death penalty: retentionist

Scores of ethnic Uzbek citizens of Kyrgyzstan suspected of supporting the banned Islamic opposition in neighbouring Uzbekistan were reportedly detained by Kyrgyz and Uzbek law enforcement officers, following bomb explosions in the Uzbek capital Tashkent in February. Some people were forcibly deported to Uzbekistan. When armed groups claiming to be members of the banned Islamic opposition in Uzbekistan crossed into Kyrgyz territory in August and took hostages, the authorities' clampdown against suspected supporters of banned Islamic opposition parties intensified. Death sentences continued to be passed by the courts, although a moratorium on executions remained in place.

Background

A series of bomb attacks in February 1999 in Uzbekistan was blamed on violent foreign-trained Islamic groups intent on establishing an Islamist state, and triggered a wave of arrests in Uzbekistan. Alarmed at the possible spread of religious extremism, Kyrgyzstan also clamped down on so-called "extremist" Islamic groups, particularly in the southern regions bordering Uzbekistan, home to a large ethnic Uzbek community.

Kyrgyzstan faced increasing political tension in August, when hundreds of armed men claiming to be members of the banned Islamic opposition in Uzbekistan crossed into Kyrgyz territory from neighbouring Tajikistan, reportedly on their way to Uzbekistan. They took several hostages, including four Japanese nationals, and declared a jihad (holy war) on Uzbekistan. After two months of a military stand-off the hostages were released. One hostage was reportedly killed by his abductors.

Detention and abduction on grounds of religion

Uzbek law enforcement officers were reported to have frequently entered Kyrgyz territory and to have arbitrarily detained Kyrgyz citizens of ethnic Uzbek origin whom they accused of having links to banned Islamic opposition parties in Uzbekistan. Dozens of ethnic Uzbek men were abducted to Uzbekistan, where they were at serious risk of human rights violations. Scores of men were detained by Kyrgyz law enforcement officers while distributing leaflets of banned Islamist parties, in particular Hizb-ut-Tahrir . In September, during identity checks, the Kyrgyz authorities reportedly rounded up hundreds of foreign citizens predominantly of Asian or Turkish origin, including 200 asylum-seekers, and confined them in temporary detention centres.

• In August Yuldashbai Tursunbayev, an ethnic Uzbek Imam of the Bazar-Korgon mosque in Jalal-Abad in the southern Osh region, was abducted. He was reportedly apprehended in the street by two armed men in civilian clothes as he was leaving the mosque after his morning prayers, and forced into a waiting car which drove in the direction of Andizhan Region in Uzbekistan. Imam Tursunbayev had reportedly been detained several times by Uzbek law enforcement officers on Kyrgyz territory in the weeks following the February bombings in Tashkent.

Harassment of human rights defenders

At the end of September 1998, the Ministry of Justice revoked the registration of the Kyrgyz Committee for Human Rights (KCHR), amid allegations that the timing was politically motivated. At the end of March 1999, the KCHR submitted its completed registration documents to the Ministry of Justice. In May, the KCHR was informed that a public association of the same name but under a different chairman had been registered by the Ministry of Justice in April. Members of the original KCHR alleged that the registration of a new organization under the same name was an attempt by the authorities to prevent a well-known human rights organization from carrying out its work. In June, the original KCHR was threatened with confiscation of its office equipment and its chairman faced criminal charges for failing to surrender the property. Following international protests and an intervention by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), the KCHR was finally re-registered in August.

Restrictions on freedom of the press

Despite an amendment to the Constitution guaranteeing freedom of the press, the independent media continued to be harassed by Kyrgyz authorities, including being sued for libel and tax evasion or other administrative offences.

• In August tax police raided the offices of the largest independent daily newspaper Vecherniy Bishkek (Bishkek Evening News), allegedly without a proper search warrant, and threatened to arrest its editor-in-chief, Aleksandr Kim, whom they accused of tax evasion. This was seen as an attempt by the government to silence any criticism in the run-up to elections. The newspaper had recently published interviews with opposition politicians.

Death penalty

According to a non-governmental source, 20 people were sentenced to death during 1999. By the end of the year, two of these had had their petitions for clemency turned down, and decisions were still pending on the other 18 cases. About 60 people were reported to be on death row at the end of 1999. A moratorium on executions introduced in 1998 remained in place.