Kyrgyz Rights 'Worse' Than Akaev Era

The massive opposition protests that swept President Askar Akaev from power in March 2005, in what was called Kyrgyzstan’s Tulip Revolution, raised hopes of a more liberal and democratic society in which civil rights would at last be respected properly.



Now, three-and-a-half years on, a number of leading human rights groups have launched a broadside against the government of former revolutionaries, saying that in some areas things are worse than they were under Akaev.



In a statement released on November 14, the Kylym Shamy Centre for Human Rights Protection, the Coalition for Democracy and Civil Society, and the Elime (“For My Country”) group, among others, urged current president Kurmanbek Bakiev to demonstrate the political will to uphold the rights and liberties enshrined in the constitution and end the persecution of political opponents.



The human rights defenders released their statement ahead of the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which falls on December 10. They complained that the Kyrgyzstan government plans to hold a series of special events to commemorate the date.



“Looking at the plan for the celebrations, we cannot understand it – observing human rights is a principal obligation for the state, not a festive gift for its citizens,” it said. “Meanwhile, the real situation concerning human rights is steadily deteriorating.”



Areas where the current regime is less tolerant than the previous one, the statement says, include freedom of assembly and expression, to the extent that the human rights defenders define nine people now living outside Kyrgyzstan as “political refugees”.



The head of the Kylym Shamy group, Aziza Abdirasulova, explained how the decline in freedom to hold public protests had come about, “Previously, the only thing needed to organise a public meeting was advance notice, but now permission has to be obtained from the local authorities, and they often refuse.”



The statement from the human rights groups cited the case of Maxim Kuleshov, an activist who is frequently arrested when he stages one-man demonstrations.



Kuleshov’s complaint is a politically sensitive one, as it relates to the alleged disappearance of 23 million soms, around 650,000 US dollars at the current exchange rate, from the Jalalabad branch of Kyrgyzstan’s central bank. Jalalabad was a stronghold of the then opposition, and the alleged theft took place on the day of the Tulip Revolution.



“The main proof that human rights have deteriorated is the fact that I cannot carry out my actions to the full. It’s my fundamental right to express my opinions, but the authorities won’t allow me to exercise that right,” Kuleshov told IWPR. “It lasts a maximum of 15 minutes and then the police take me away.”



The activist was arrested yet again on November 18 while staging another protest, and was accused of breaching the regulations governing the conduct of public meetings.



As further evidence of the decline in respect for human rights, the groups that signed the statement said nine journalists and political activists had been forced to flee Kyrgyzstan in the last three years, whereas there was just one such individual in the period before March 2005.



In addition, the human rights defenders said flaws in the conduct of parliamentary polls last December and local elections in October 2008 had “badly undermined citizens’ confidence in the institution of elections”.



“The extent of electoral violations, and the open and crude manner in which they happened, reached a level that fundamentally damages the relationship between citizen and state,” it said.



The December 2007 legislative election resulted in overwhelming victory for Bakiev’s Ak Jol party, which had started up from scratch only two months earlier. The OSCE said that overall, the ballot “represented a missed opportunity and fell short of public expectations".



Responding to the allegations set out in the human rights defenders’ statement, Nurkalam Nabiev of the Prosecutor General’s office told IWPR that talk of “political refugees” was completely unfounded.



“Those persons whom the human rights activists named as political refugees in their open letter have in reality left the country for their own private reasons,” he said.



Some of the individuals concerned, he said, had faced criminal charges in Kyrgyzstan, but this legal action had nothing to do with their political activities.



One of the nine, Kairat Birimkulov, left the country after being threatened and beaten up on several occasions after publishing a series of articles alleging corruption in Kyrgyzstan’s state rail company.



“Birimkulov was attacked, and it was robbery. The motive for the attack was purely theft, and was unconnected with his political, professional or other activities,” said Nabiev.



Kyrgyzstan’s human rights ombudsman, Tursunbek Akun, acknowledged that the country faced many problems, while urging activists to be fair-minded in their criticism.



“The human rights defenders are right in many regards, but one shouldn’t be one-sided in claiming a deterioration in the human rights situation,” he said. “There are positive things, too…. There are minuses, but also pluses.”



For instance, said Akun, under the current government criminal legislation has been made more humane, the prison population has been cut from 16,000 to 10,000 and the death penalty has been abolished.



At the same time, he said, “One has to admit that the law on public assembly has been a setback.”



Amendments to this law, which Bakiev formally signed off on in August after it was rushed through parliament, not only require would-be organisers of demonstrations to obtain permission from the authorities beforehand, but also allow officials to refuse to allow the event for various reasons and to restrict the locations where people can gather.



When he approved the bill, Bakiev noted that it had proved controversial and instructed “further examination” of all the complaints and recommendations about it that had been submitted by the ombudsman, the OSCE, and Kyrgyz non-government organisations, NGOs. Despite having signed the law into effect, the president has now, according to Akun, ordered “further work” to be done on it.



“He probably realises it’s a roll-back from democratic principles,” said Akun, adding that his own office was pressing for human rights groups and other NGOs to be represented on the commission that drafts revisions to the law.



Mirgul Akimova is the pseudonym of an IWPR reporter in Bishkek.