Human Rights Developments

Defending Human Rights

The Role of the International Community

Defending Human Rights

The Kyrgyz Committee for Human Rights (KCHR), the largest human rights organization in the republic, reported that the municipal procuracy of Bishkek launched an investigation into the group’s use of grant funds after the President’s administration allegedly ordered the chief procurator to find any grounds for jailing the committee’s chairman, Ramazan Dyryldaev. As of September 1998, the investigation continued. Dyryldaev believed this punitive action was taken in order to halt the activities of the organization, which has been outspoken in its defense of the rights of journalists and opposition politicians.

Jalal-Abad police arrested three members of the Jalal-Abad branch of the KCHR—Tynybek Batyraliev, Albert Korgoldoev, and Abdunazar Mamatislamov—on September 23 and interrogated the men during the night. In the morning, at an emergency session of the Jalal-Abad Municipal Court, Judge Asanbayev tried Batyraliev and Korgoldoev, found them guilty of violating article 163 of the civil code, public order, and sentenced the two human rights activists to fifteen days in prison. The men had reportedly been distributing flyers and putting up posters encouraging people to attend a public meeting in opposition to the upcoming constitutional referendum. On October 7, following international protest over the arrests, authorities released Batyraliev and Korgoldoev. As of mid-October, Mamatislamov continued to be held in police custody, facing criminal charges for alleged embezzlement. Police also arrested a fourth human rights activist in Jalal-Abad, Edgar Parpiev, on September 24, after finding him in possession of one leaflet calling for the public meeting. The Nooken regional court sentenced him to fifteen days of administrative arrest.

In September, on the heels of the arrests of the KCHR activists and just weeks before the constitutional referendum scheduled by President Akaev, the Chamber of the Ministry of Justice revoked the registration of the KCHR. The KCHR was then denied the right to monitor the voting on the referendum. The group’s registration, granted in June 1996, was annulled at the request of the procurator general’s office, which claimed that several members were absent from the founding meeting. Under Kyrgyz law, only a court, not an administrative body, has the authority to revoke the registration of a public association.

Harassment of KCHR activists continued into October. In Bishkek, an officer from the Ministry of Interior approached Azimhan Niyazbekova on the street at night and threatened that she would be physically harmed unless she halted her human rights activities.