WELCOME TO IWPR'S REPORTING CENTRAL ASIA, No. 648, June 1, 2011 KAZAK HUMAN RIGHTS REFORMS UNDER FIRE Government action plan criticised as flawed, incomplete. By Timur Kumenov
COMMENT KYRGYZSTAN: VICTIMS OF POLICE ABUSE STRUGGLE FOR JUSTICE Tackling abuse in detention requires major shake-up of policing and external scrutiny of places of detention. By Kamil Ruziev KAZAKSTAN: MORE OF THE SAME DESPITE REFORM TALK Interview with Andrei Chebotarev, director of the Alternativa Centre for Political Studies in Kazakstan. By Almaz Rysaliev KYRGYZSTAN REPORT DRAWS SHAKY LINE UNDER VIOLENCE Unsurprisingly, independent team’s findings get mixed reaction in fraught political environment. By Dina Tokbaeva **** NEW ************************************************************************************ LATEST PROJECT REVIEWS: http://iwpr.net/make-an-impact/project-reviews VACANCIES: http://iwpr.net/what-we-do/vacancies **** IWPR RESOURCES ****************************************************************** CENTRAL ASIA PROGRAMME HOME: http://www.iwpr.net/programme/central-asia CENTRAL ASIA RADIO: http://iwpr.net/programme/central-asia/central-asia-radio NEWS BRIEFING CENTRAL ASIA: http://iwpr.net/programme/news-briefing-central-asia CENTRAL ASIA HUMAN RIGHTS: http://iwpr.net/programme/central-asia-human-rights-reporting-project STORY BEHIND THE STORY: http://iwpr.net/report-news/the-story-behind-the-story BECOME A FAN OF IWPR ON FACEBOOK http://facebook.com/InstituteforWarandPeaceReporting FOLLOW US ON TWITTER http://twitter.com/iwpr **** http://iwpr.net/ ********************************************************** DONATE TO IWPR: http://iwpr.net/donate **** http://iwpr.net/ ********************************************************** KAZAK HUMAN RIGHTS REFORMS UNDER FIRE Government action plan criticised as flawed, incomplete. By Timur Kumenov With one year to go before the deadline for completing Kazakstan’s three-year National Human Rights Action Plan, rights activists say the authorities have done far too little to implement it. They argue that work on the plan is not on schedule, and that on past practice, reforms on paper do not easily translate into changes to the way laws are implemented on the ground. Introduced in May 2009, the National Human Rights Action Plan sets out a list of steps that need to be take to improve Kazakstan’s legislation and law-enforcement practice, and also to make the public more awareness of human rights issues. The measures are in part based on recommendations made by international organisations. The success of work done on the action plan so far was contested by human rights activists and government officials at an April 20 meeting in the capital Astana. Representative of the authorities defended their record at the meeting. The secretary of the state Commission for Human Rights, Tastemir Abishev, said more than 40 per cent of recommendations had already been implemented. In terms of legislation, he noted that Kazakstan had passed new laws on policing, sexual equality, domestic violence, and refugees, and ratified international agreements such as one concerning the status of migrant workers in former Soviet states. Human rights defenders interviewed by IWPR argued that progress on the action plan was lagging behind, particularly in areas like media freedom and systems to end torture in places of detention. One of the main obstacles, they said, was that there were no mechanisms to make recommendations mandatory rather than voluntary. “The National Human Rights Action Plan does not have the status of a legislative document which government agencies are obliged to act on,” Yuri Gusakov, director of the Karaganda regional branch of the Kazakstan Bureau for Human Rights and Rule of Law, said. “There are no strict deadlines for implementing the work, and responsibilities have not been assigned, so that no executive body has taken it upon itself to enact the provisions of the national plan.” This was in an environment where the main oversight bodies – the State Commission for Human Rights and the national ombudsman’s office – exerted only limited influence. They offered advice but not did not exercise mandatory powers, and they in turn were not subject to scrutiny, Gusakov said. With regulation weak and corruption endemic in the legal system, he added, “People have no confidence in the law, so many issues are resolved by evading state-imposed regulations.” The head of the Centre for Legal Policy Studies, Nazgul Yergalieva, cited the continuing use of torture as an area where policy statements were at odds with reality. Torture by agents of state was made a separate criminal offence in 2002, and evidence extracted under duress is not admissible in court. Management of prisons has been transferred from the interior ministry, which controls the police, to the ministry of justice, and arrest warrants are now issued by judges rather than prosecutors. These undoubted improvements to the law have not, however, stamped out the use of torture. Yergalieva compared the 263 allegations received by the NGO Coalition Against Torture in the first ten months of 2010 with the small number – just four – who were actually convicted of the offence. She added that courts were still admitting evidence which defendants claimed had been extracted under torture. Yergalieva argues that Kazakstan’s law-enforcement agencies still see their role as being the punitive arm of the state, rather than neutral upholders of the law. “The main measure of their effectiveness is still the rate of solving crimes, not the protection of citizens’ constitutional rights,” she said. (For more on this issue, see Unprecedented Torture Trial in Kazakstan and Kazakstan Needs Laws to Underpin Torture Ban.) Other commentators raised similar criticisms about the human rights action plan with regard to freedom of expression. Tamara Kaleeva, head of the media support group Adil Soz, says the measures included in the plan are largely declaratory and omit some of the most pressing issues. “The real obstacles that hinder freedom of expression still exist,” she said. (Media Freedom “Worse” in Kazakstan’s OSCE Year looks at some of the key concerns.) Kaleeva and other media rights activists have welcomed recent changes to the law restricting the use of libel actions against journalists and the penalties that can be applied, but say they do not go far enough. (Defamation issues are covered in Kazak Libel Law Changes Not Enough.) “Libel and slander still exist as criminal offences that can result in imprisonment for up to three years,” Kaleeva said. Timur Kumenov is the pseudonym of a journalist in Kazakstan. This article was produced jointly under two IWPR projects: Building Central Asian Human Rights Protection & Education Through the Media, funded by the European Commission; and the Human Rights Reporting, Confidence Building and Conflict Information Programme, funded by the Foreign Ministry of Norway. The contents of this article are the sole responsibility of IWPR and can in no way be taken to reflect the views of either the European Union or the Foreign Ministry of Norway. COMMENT KYRGYZSTAN: VICTIMS OF POLICE ABUSE STRUGGLE FOR JUSTICE Tackling abuse in detention requires major shake-up of policing and external scrutiny of places of detention. By Kamil Ruziev At the end of May, it will be one year since my human rights group, Ventus, took up the case of Abazbek Chynyev, who is seeking the prosecution of police officers whom he accuses of torturing him. Although we succeeded in getting the chief prosecutor’s office to review the case, and persuaded the presidential administration and human rights ombudsman to press local prosecutors in Issykkul region to take action, there has been no substantive progress as yet. Chynyev’s case demonstrates that individual campaigns have little chance of securing justice in the face of a culture of impunity and institutional resistance to external scrutiny. In such an environment, the only way of achieving a breakthrough is to push for comprehensive reforms to a system that at present, allows such abuses of people in detention to take place. One of the preconditions for change is that the long-awaited legislation to enact a “national preventive mechanism” envisaged by the optional protocol to the international convention against torture should be finally passed. Mechanisms allowing public scrutiny of the law-enforcement and prosecution agencies should be expanded beyond the current groups that carry out such monitoring in the capital Bishkek. Another important step would be allowing private rather than state-run clinics to conduct independent assessments of individuals who claim they have been tortured. Chynyev, now, 33, was arrested in May 2009 in the town of Balykchi in Issykkul region. He was detained on suspicion of possessing and transporting 45 grams of hashish; he insists police planted the drugs on him. While he was in detention, he says, two officers repeatedly beat him with truncheons, punched and kicked him, and threatened to sexually assault and kill him. As a result, he made a confession under duress. Still within the 48-hour period within which a person can be initially detained, Chynyev was brought before a prosecutor, to whom he complained he had been tortured. But he says the prosecutor refused to listen and dismissed him. The same prosecutor gave my Ventus group a different account, saying Chynyev did not make an allegation of torture, and that if he had done so, he would have been sent for medical checks immediately. He argued that Chynyev was not injured at the police station, and that medical evidence produced after he was examined in hospital a week later was not acceptable proof. These tests – conducted immediately after a court ordered his release on bail – show that he had a head injury as well as bruising to his lower back. He has since undergone several courses of treatment, and has been in hospital since the end of February. An assessment conducted by the rehabilitation centre for torture victims states that he also suffered psychological trauma. Chynyev and his lawyer succeeded in getting a criminal case opened last July, but for the lesser offence of assault leading to injury rather than torture. This was followed by repeated attempts to block further proceedings. Police and prosecutors in Balykchi did not carry out a request from the regional prosecutor’s office to conduct an investigation, and refused to cooperate with the national ombudsman’s office. As a result, the case has been halted three times – in October and December last year, and again this April. By way of an explanation, officials at the regional prosecutor’s office cited lack of evidence and the absence of witnesses of the alleged torture. Their most recent refusal to re-open the case against the police officers comes after the prosecutor general’s office intervened in February, reviewing the evidence and overruling earlier decisions to halt it, on the grounds that the investigation of Chynyev’s alleged drugs offence was flawed. Meanwhile, the ombudsman’s office said it was unable to pursue Chynyev’s complaint due to lack of cooperation from regional prosecutors, who refused its requests to look at his file. The prosecutor’s office in Issykkul has thus ignored all requests from higher bodies to pursue the matter, including from the government and the presidential administration. The police officers accused in the case deny assaulting Chynyev and fabricating legal documents. The deputy head of the Balykchi district police department said his men were incapable of committing such an act, while his colleagues at the provincial-level police department insisted the officers did nothing illegal. Ventus has spoken to Erkinbek Kurmanaliev, the investigator assigned by the regional prosecutor’s office to look into Chynyev’s claim, and who was behind the decision to halt the case in April, declined to comment on allegations that progress is being deliberately blocked. He refused to comment on suggestions of a cover-up and denied rejected allegations of corrupt practices. Given the current state of affairs in law-enforcement and the judiciary, it is unsurprising that the system fails people like Chynyev who wish to pursue claims of mistreatment at the hands of the police. No one has been found guilty of torture since it was introduced into Kyrgyz legislation in 2003, as a separate offence committed by agents of the state. Out of 11 criminal cases which the prosecutor general’s office brought last year on the basis of complaints of police mistreatment, two concerned charges of torture, one a lesser charge of physical mistreatment, and eight the offence of “exceeding one’s authority”. These figures indicate that official resistance to acknowledging the existence of torture remains very strong. Matters are not helped by the procrastination in passing a bill on national preventive mechanisms, which would open up the treatment of detainees to external scrutiny. Kyrgyzstan has been a party to the United Nations Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment since 1996. Two years later, it became the first Central Asian state to ratify the optional protocol, which requires signatories to design and implement preventive mechanisms under which a public monitoring group consisting of experts and human rights defenders can pay regular visits to places of detention. Legislation on this should have been passed by January at the latest, but it has been delayed, principally by police resistance to the kind of complete and unrestricted access envisaged by the UN protocol. The law would have a direct bearing on the cases of individuals who find themselves in Chynyev’s position. Detainees are particularly vulnerable in the period between the start of an investigation and 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. An awareness that external monitors might turn up unannounced and take swift action on possible cases of torture would serve as a major deterrent to abuse. Such monitoring would have to take place nationwide, covering facilities run by national, regional and district law-enforcement agencies. Furthermore, I believe that private clinics must be given authorisation to carry out independent medical testing of alleged torture victims. This is needed in order to break the current monopoly held by the state-funded National Forensic Medicine Centre, which cannot be trusted to provide unbiased assessments due to its close links with law-enforcement. At the moment such examinations can only be carried out on the basis of a referral from the police services – this too must change. Finally, I believe the state should underwrite the costs of such private examinations. Last year, human rights groups in Kyrgyzstan received more than 300 complaints or applications for help from individuals who said they had suffered abuse in places of detention. This figure needs to be seen in the context of a spike in prosecutions and trials in the months following last June’s bloodshed in and around the southern cities of Osh and Jalalabad. Many human rights organisations have voiced serious concern that suspects have been subjected to torture and other forms of mistreatment while in custody. A report by the Independent Inquiry Commission, published on May 3 this year, found that there was a consistent and reliable body of evidence pointing to acts of torture committed in places of detention in the aftermath of the June violence. The commission said it was particularly concerned that such acts appeared to be continuing and that the authorities’ response to date had been “grossly inadequate”. In this post-conflict environment, therefore, there is added urgency to the need to end abuse by law-enforcement officers. It is not just a question of creating a better, more just society where public institutions are accountable and those employed by the state can be made to answer for wrongdoings. By publicly acknowledging that the problem exists, and demonstrating that they are serious about tackling it, the Kyrgyz authorities will take a major step towards regaining public confidence in their ability to administer restorative justice. Post-conflict reconciliation and ultimately national unity in Kyrgyzstan depend on that trust being rebuilt. Kamil Ruziev is head of the Ventus human rights group in Kyrgyzstan. This article was produced jointly under two IWPR projects: Building Central Asian Human Rights Protection & Education Through the Media, funded by the European Commission; and the Human Rights Reporting, Confidence Building and Conflict Information Programme, funded by the Foreign Ministry of Norway. The contents of this article are the sole responsibility of IWPR and can in no way be taken to reflect the views of either the European Union or the Foreign Ministry of Norway. KAZAKSTAN: MORE OF THE SAME DESPITE REFORM TALK Interview with Andrei Chebotarev, director of the Alternativa Centre for Political Studies in Kazakstan. By Almaz Rysaliev In this video interview, political analyst Andrei Chebotarev discusses Kazakstan’s prospects following the election of President Nursultan Nazarbaev to another term in office on April 4. He assesses the Kazak authorities’ pledges of democratic change, in particular whether they really plan to allow opposition parties into parliament, or whether pluralism will consist of the ruling Nur Otan joined by a number of other pro-government parties. Longer term, he looks at the types of elite groups from which a successor to Nazarbaev could be selected, when the president eventually makes plans to retire. Chebotarev argues that it no longer seems likely that members of Nazarbaev’s immediate family are in the running. KYRGYZSTAN REPORT DRAWS SHAKY LINE UNDER VIOLENCE Unsurprisingly, independent team’s findings get mixed reaction in fraught political environment. By Dina Tokbaeva An independent report into last summer’s violence in southern Kyrgyzstan provides a useful account of what happened, analysts in the country say. But they differ on how comprehensively it identified the causes and culprits behind the bloodshed. At a May 10 teleconference with analysts in Washington arranged by IWPR and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, experts in the Kyrgyz capital Bishkek said much now depended on whether any action was taken on the recommendations made by the Kyrgyzstan Inquiry Commission, KIC. The KIC, a team of international experts commissioned by the Kyrgyz president and led by Kimmo Kiljunen, the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly’s special representative for Central Asia, published its findings on May 3, after spending months interviewing 750 witnesses and examining thousands of pieces of documentary, photographic and video evidence. The commission said some of the abuses it identified in Osh would, if proved in a court of law, constitute crimes against humanity. It was now essential for the national authorities to identify the individuals responsible for the violence and hold them to account, the report said, but so far prosecutions had been “selective” – targeting mainly ethnic Uzbeks – trials had been conducted unfairly, and there were allegation that suspects were tortured while in detention. The KIC found that three-quarters of the 470 people known to have been killed were Uzbek and most of the rest Kyrgyz. Thousands were injured, and the KIC also collected evidence of sexual violence. When it looked at the causes of the violence, the commission found that nationalist sentiment was boosted by competing political interests in the context of a power vacuum, fragile state institutions and weak rule of law in southern Kyrgyzstan. “Political fanaticism misused ethnicity with tragic consequences,” Kiljunen said. Despite the weakness of state institutions following regime change in April 2010, the provisional government either failed to notice or underestimated a deterioration in ethnic relations. Violence was, the report said, “reasonably foreseeable”. Lack of intervention by Kyrgyzstan’s security forces, and that fact that some members allowed their weapons to be seized by the mob, suggesting lapses in command structures and training, and raising questions about possible complicity in the violence. Various parts of Kyrgyzstan’s establishment have already rounded on the KIC’s findings. The government issued a statement saying the document missed out crucial elements in the chain of events, and was wrong to assert that ethnic Uzbeks suffered disproportionately. In similar vein, a parliamentary commission charged with investigating the unrest in southern Kyrgyzstan accused the KIC of ignoring the damaging role of what it characterised as power-hungry Uzbek community leaders, in addition to that played by associates of ousted president Kurmanbek Bakiev and by organised crime. At the IWPR-hosted debate in Bishkek, some speakers also found flaws in the KIC’s approach. “I was disappointed in the report’s methodology,” Elmira Nogoybaeva from the Polis-Asia think tank said. “It gives the impression that there were just three actors in the events in Osh – the Kyrgyz, the Uzbeks and the government. The rest don’t get a mention.” Other analysts disagreed. Pavel Dyatlenko, also from Polis-Asia, said the KIC provided “the most analytical and most accurate answers to the questions posed out of all four reports”. The other three are a report released in March by a special national commission – separate from the parliamentary commission – a probe by a group of Kyrgyz and Uzbek human rights activists, and a report by the New York-based Human Rights Watch. (On the controversy around the special commission’s report, see Deep Rifts Remain in Conflict-Torn Kyrgyz South.) “It identifies those responsible by name, it makes specific recommendations, and it doesn’t make references to abstract ‘malign forces’,” he said. In addition, the fact that the KIC applied the rigorous language of international law in classifying abuses will “make it possible to pursue further investigations, identify perpetrators, and determine compensation for victims”, Dyatlenko said. What actually happens now that the report has been made public is unclear. Dyatlenko believes Kyrgyzstan’s reliance on international assistance means the authorities cannot afford to ignore the report. Emil Kaptagaev, who heads the presidential office, said the fact that an independent investigation had been carried out showed that the administration was prepared to listen and make policy changes. “The international community has seen that the Kyrgyz authorities have nothing to hide, and that we are trying to learn the lessons from what happened,” he said. Mira Karybaeva, who heads a department in the Kyrgyz presidential administration responsible for ethnic policy, said the government was putting together a working group that will draft reforms to the way judges, prosecutors and police are recruited. Speakers at the IWPR-Carnegie Endowment event noted that with a presidential election due later this year, the debate about what happened in southern Kyrgyzstan would be a hot topic. “The ethnic aspect of this conflict provides a pretext for using the [KIC] report as a political asset,” Nogoybaeva said. Valentin Bogatyrev of the Perspektiva analysis group said the report could be misused as a political weapon. “At that point its failings will play a significant role. Participants in the political process will make active use of them against opponents whom they can blame for what happened last June,” he said. Another analyst, Mars Sariev, agreed, saying, “Those who weren’t in power during the tragedy will be able to present themselves in a better light.” By contrast, the KIC’s findings could be bad for former members of the interim government from the Ata Meken, Social Democratic and Ak Shumkar parties, who would be vulnerable to criticisms that the administration they served in did not do enough to prevent the violence. Askar Beshimov, who heads the Future Project think tank, warned that some political forces might “manipulate” the report’s findings for their own ends. Some of the political groups that have emerged since the violence reflect a strong vein of Kyrgyz nationalism. “Ahead of the presidential election, rising nationalist sentiment might be seized upon, and this will be well-received among the rural population,” Beshimov said. Dina Tokbaeva is IWPR regional editor in Central Asia. This article was produced jointly under two IWPR projects: Building Central Asian Human Rights Protection & Education Through the Media, funded by the European Commission; and the Human Rights Reporting, Confidence Building and Conflict Information Programme, funded by the Foreign Ministry of Norway. The contents of this article are the sole responsibility of IWPR and can in no way be taken to reflect the views of either the European Union or the Foreign Ministry of Norway. **** http://iwpr.net/ ********************************************************** REPORTING CENTRAL ASIA provides the international community with a unique insiders' perspective on the region. Using our network of local journalists, the service publishes news and analysis from across Central Asia on a weekly basis. The service forms part of IWPR's Central Asia Project based in Almaty, Bishkek, Tashkent and London, which supports media development and encourages better local and international understanding of the region. IWPR's Reporting Central Asia is supported by the UK Community Fund. The service is published online in English and Russian. The opinions expressed in Reporting Central Asia are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of the publication or of IWPR. REPORTING CENTRAL ASIA: Editor-in-Chief: Anthony Borden; Managing Editor: Yigal Chazan; Senior Editor and Acting Central Asia Director: John MacLeod; Central Asia Editor: Saule Mukhametrakhimova. 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