Torture Prevention Bill to be Postponed in Kyrgyzstan

Legislation designed to create stronger mechanisms to stop people being tortured in detention in Kyrgyzstan is likely to be postponed from its end-of-January deadline, but civil society activists say the most important thing is to get the arrangements absolutely right.

Activists fear, however, that an important provision giving prison monitoring teams unrestricted access to detainees could be dropped from the document because law-enforcement officials object. That would nullify many of the benefits of the anti-torture law, they say.

Kyrgyzstan has been a party to the United Nations Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment since 1996. When it ratified the optional protocol to the document in February 2008 – as the first Central Asia country to do so – Kyrgyzstan committed itself to “establish a system of regular visits undertaken by independent international and national bodies” at places of detention.

The terms of the protocol required Kyrgyzstan to design a National Preventive Mechanism or NPM, which envisages regular visits to places of detention by local experts.

The NPM document was drafted by a working group set up by Kyrgyzstan’s human rights ombudsman.

In addition to police cells and prisons, the Kyrgyz document also provides rights to inspect other institutions with restricted public access such as psychiatric hospitals, children’s homes, old people’s homes, and the military.

Alisher Mamasaliev, a member of parliament from the ruling Ak Jol party, is part of the working group, made up of representatives of the state and of rights groups

“The national mechanism is not a panacea,” Mamasaliev told IWPR. “But reform of Kyrgyzstan’s penitentiary system will not be possible without public monitoring.”

Another member of the working group, Ulugbek Azimov of the Independent Human Rights Group, explained that each signatory state had the right to decide how it wanted to shape its NPM model as long as it met the basic requirements.

He detailed the main obligations as follows, “The protocol requires that the NPM involves experts who are independent from the executive and enjoy a certain immunity, that its members are appointed independently, that it provides for unrestricted access to all places of detention on any day and at any time, that communication with prisoners takes place in private, and that it is funded out of the state budget.”

Azimov said the NPM in Kyrgyzstan would be led by a coordinating council consisting of five representatives from non-government organisations, three members of parliament and the ombudsman himself. The council will arrange regular visits to places of detention, write recommendations based on its observations, and work with government agencies to ensure these are implemented. Monitoring visits will be conducted by the Centre for Monitoring and Assessment, a standing body consisting of 19 experts.

Ikram Mameshov, a spokesman for the ombudsman’s office, said police torture took place in many countries, including democracies. The purpose of the NPM, he said, was to “create a barrier against torture as far as is possible”.

According to Mameshov, detainees are particularly vulnerable in the period between the start of an investigation until the formal launch of criminal proceedings. It is during this time that torture is most likely to take place, as police try to coerce a confession as an easy way to a successful prosecution.

He said police sometimes applied physical pressure on detainees to get them to admit to charges that were complete fabrications, and also to pin unsolved crimes on them.

“Many are unable to hold out and sign confessions of this kind,” he said.

Earlier this month, IWPR reported on the case of a young man who is suing policemen whom he accuses of torturing him. The article can be seen here: Kyrgyz Torture Lawsuit May Set Precedent. For more on the question of torture, see Kyrgyzstan: Hopes for Stronger Anti-Torture Regulation.

As a country is supposed to have its NPM in place within a year of it signing the additional UN protocol, the bill should have gone through Kyrgyzstan’s parliament by the beginning of February.

The main sticking point has been the working group’s inability to agree on the complete and unrestricted access stipulated by the UN protocol.

Rights activists say law-enforcement representatives asked for the wording on access to be softened, as did some parliamentarians. Supporters of the milder wording argued that they had the welfare of the monitoring teams in mind, as it might be difficult to lay on adequate safety during night-time visits.

Nuridin Nurakov, a representative of the ombudsman closely involved in the NPM debate, said this was the majority view in the working group, though not one he subscribed to. As a result, the document was amended and now refers only to the “possibility” of unrestricted access.

Nurakov said he and other rights advocates were working to get their colleagues on the drafting group to change their minds.

“We need to adopt a document that will work effectively,” he said.

Civil society representatives insist that without unfettered access, the whole torture prevention mechanism will be falter. The unpredictability of visits serves as a deterrent to abuse, and torture often takes place in the hours of darkness.

Abdumalik Sharipov, a rights activist who has been following the issue of torture for many years, says an NPM document that omits this central provision will be a “half measure”.

“If experts aren’t allowed night visits, then they won’t be able to respond swiftly to indications of torture,” he said.

A few other issues are adding to the delay in agreeing terms for the NPM. For one thing, the question of government funding has not been sorted out. The government is short of cash due to the ongoing economic crisis affecting Kyrgyzstan and its neighbours, and may find it hard to commit to the required level of spending.

Second, there is no consensus on a proposal to invite all the political parties that hold parliamentary seats to have a representative in the NPM coordinating council. Civil society groups backed the idea, but critics said it would politicise the NPM.

Azimov of the Independent Human Rights Group, for one, remains optimistic that the document will be improved.

“The NPM will most probably become a reality towards the end of 2010, and it’s best not to hurry,” he said. “We have a chance to create an effective and useful mechanism, and not a project that exists only on paper.”

On January 20, human rights groups alleged that two men had been subjected to torture in a pre-trial facility in Aravan in southern Kyrgyzstan, and had subsequently disappeared, the AKIpress news agency reported. Kyrgyzstan’s interior ministry later put out a statement denying the men had been tortured.