Torture in Kyrgyzstan: Crime Without Punishment
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Torture in Kyrgyzstan: Crime without Punishment Formally, law-enforcement and security officers may be imprisoned for torture during detention and custody of a citizen. In practice, the victims can hardly reach it as it is almost impossible. Join us on LinkedIn! According to official data, every year Kyrgyzstan registers about 400 or more complaints about torture used by law-enforcement officers. Although, according to human rights defenders, the real number can exceed this figure at least five times. Meanwhile, despite the fact that almost 25 years have passed after Kyrgyzstan officially recognised the fact of torture, just above ten police officers were sentenced for this kind of crime, according to official data. Torture, battery, threats – daily routine of the police? On the evening of September 6, 2020, a 51-year-old resident of Nookat district of Osh region, Kabylzhan Alidzhanov, came back home with numerous bruises and pain in kidneys and groin area. Four hours earlier, he was detained and taken to the building of the local police department, where law-enforcement officers extorted more than 570 thousand som (nearly 6,700 dollars) from him as a non-existent A building of one of the district internal affairs departments in Bishkek. Photo for illustration debt, according to his relatives. Otherwise, they purposes only. Photo: CABAR.asia threatened to incriminate a few crimes in him: fraud, robbery, brigandism, and drug marketing and to imprison him for many years. Because of fear for his life, Alidzhanov moved to Moscow, where he opened business a few months ago. He sent the medical assessment of beatings by police officers from there. The son of Alidzhanov, Sirozhidin, said: Everyone here is afraid of prosecutors and police officers. Nookat is a small town. He was so much intimidated that he was afraid of going to a hospital or notifying the police. We Torture in Kyrgyzstan: Crime without Punishment managed to collect and gave to police officers only 100 thousand som (nearly 1,200 dollars). Our relatives helped us, my mother borrowed some money in a pawnshop in exchange for jewellery. But they want 475 thousand som (over 5,500 dollars) from us. Where can we take this money from? According to Alidzhanov Jr., the pressure from law-enforcement officers is related to the conflict between his father and his business partner in Russia, who is the native of Kyrgyzstan. “The uncle of the father’s partner came to our house and threatened that some people would come to us if we fail to find the money for him until evening. These people were the criminal investigation department officers,” Sirozhidin said. When beating Alidzhanov, the police officers, according to him, threatened to sell his children and his pregnant daughter-in-law to slavery in Chechnya, and the latter gave birth to a premature child. The local prosecutor’s office, according to the Alidzhanovs, refused to accept their complaint about the police officers. However, after the request to the General Prosecutor’s Office, the regulatory authority of Osh region reported that two pre-trial procedures were initiated against the police officers of Nookat district for illegal detention and use of torture. The investigation department of the Chief Directorate of the State Committee for National Security (hereinafter, GKNB) for Osh city and Osh region is carrying out the investigation. However, even after that, according to the victims, when speaking to them, the investigator of GKNB showed determination to protect the police officers rather than the victims seeking help. Death after five hours of torture On the night of October 16, 2020, 26-year- old resident of Nookat district, Mukhamed Kanybek uulu, died in the building of the Directorate of Internal Affairs of Osh [UVD]. He was detained on suspicion of robbery committed ten days earlier. “Mukhammed was detained because he had previous conviction of robbery. When he was 18, his friends and he robbed the petrol The building of the Directorate of Internal Affairs, Osh. station with a toy gun,” said the friend of Photo: 2Gis the deceased’s brother, Aibek Sydykov. Torture in Kyrgyzstan: Crime without Punishment “But he served time in jail in full. On that day (October 16), he, his wife and his kid were going to go to Bishkek. We thought they already left because they said goodbye to their mother and brother. His brother gave him 500 thousand som so that he could buy a vehicle in Bishkek. No money were found with him.” Now the police produce an argument that a substantial sum of money was seized from the suspect upon detention, which proved his implication in a crime. According to Sydykov, Mukhammed was detained at 8 pm, and at 1 am his body was already in the mortuary. They learned about what happened only two days after his death from one of local police officers. The deceased had a wife and a six-months-old son. Everyone was shocked. We didn’t even want to file the report to police because we just wanted to take and bury the body. “We were told that investigators did not allow to return the body because of the investigation, and we had to wait for one more day. After we saw him tortured, we decided to complete the case and hired the lawyers. He was beaten black and blue. We could assume from the bruises on his body that he was not even tortured, but rather tormented severely,” said Aibek Sydykov. When the police explained what happened, they first said police officers shot him with a less-lethal weapon when he attempted to resist arrest. Thereafter, he was taken to the regional directorate of internal affairs, went faint, and the ambulance team could not help him. Later on, the interior ministry told another version, where the detained went faint “for unknown reasons after he was taken to the office and died on the way to the emergency ambulance.” The chief of the department and four field agents were dismissed. Another police officer was levied a disciplinary fine. However, after a wave of public resentment about soft punishment, all six officers of the criminal police service of UVD of Osh region were detained and placed to the temporary detention facility of GKNB on suspicion of the use of torture. “Aquarium”, “elephant” and rubber ward Torture in Kyrgyzstan: Crime without Punishment Over 90 per cent of torture in Kyrgyzstan are used in law-enforcement system, National Centre against Torture According to National Centre for the Prevention of Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment of the Kyrgyz Republic, over 90 per cent of torture in Kyrgyzstan are used in law-enforcement system. Generally, this “effective” method of interrogation is used in the first hours of detention. However, in recent years, according to the head of the human rights organisation, Bakyt Rysbekov, torture in investigators’ offices, which used to be widespread in the past, is no longer used. “When we started our activity, people were beaten in internal affairs departments. Now, as they say, the suspects are treated before they are taken to the department,” said Rysbekov. “Do you remember the case of robbery of a great sum of money at the Osh airport? The people who were detained said they were taken to the river, it was the cold season though, were beaten and poured with cold water. They were forced to undress in advance and to get into the river.” Bakyt Rysbekov, director of the National Centre for the To keep the facts of torture unknown to the wide public, the law- Prevention of Torture in the Kyrgyz Republic. Photo:enforcement officers, according to Rysbekov, use refined torture CABAR.asia against their victims. And the victims prefer to keep silent about it. They put plastic bags on their heads. This is one of the most refined methods. In addition to the fact that the person chokes and faints away, he or she urinates and defecates voluntarily, which is the most severe humiliation. And those people who have undergone this method of torture rarely admit it. There is a special subculture with its own rules in closed facilities. Further status of the inmate in the new environment depends on their behaviour. Therefore, the people who have undergone humiliating types of torture rarely speak about them. Such types of torture include raping with a police truncheon, or other expedient articles. They will never tell about it because they are concerned about their future. In 2012, the number of registered torture reports was 371, in 2015 – 478, and in 2017 – they declined to 418. However, the real number of such facts, according to Rysbekov’s estimates, is many times more than the numbers given. According to Rysbekov, the alleged decline in the number of police reports about torture does not mean the real decline because of the refined torture and the impunity of criminals. Torture in Kyrgyzstan: Crime without Punishment Crime without punishment Article 305-1 “Torture” that provides for imprisonment for 3 to 5 years appeared in the criminal code of the Kyrgyz Republic in 2003. In 2012, it was improved and brought into line with the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. The crime was qualified as high crime and punishment for it was increased up to 15 years in prison. In addition, such convicts were deprived of the right to parole and amnesty. According to the report of the Kyrgyz Republic on the progress of implementation of the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment dated October 19, 2018, nearly 150 officers of the interior ministry were charged under 60 criminal cases from 2012 to 2018 for the use of torture and other cruel treatment.