154 prisoners died in Kyrgyz prisons over 2.5 years

The State Penitentiary Service does not disclose the causes of deaths. Human rights activists believe that mostly prisoners die from illness due to lack of access to normal treatment, torture, and in the process of suppressing riots.

In 2017, 66 prisoners died in Kyrgyz prisons, in 2018 – 65, for the five months of this year – 23, another 9 people are in serious condition. Such data, at the request of human rights activist Tolekan Ismailova, “Odin mir” [“One World”] was provided by the State Penitentiary Service.

“Together with the International Crisis Group, we first prepared the report “Prison nightmare”, in which we say that prisons built in Soviet times are in terrible condition. You can’t keep people there, they don’t even meet the minimum international standards,” the human rights activist said.

According to Ismailova, who has been monitoring the prison system of Kyrgyzstan since 2005, once in prison, any healthy person will lose health.

“I was in shock. Every human life is priceless. The Constitution provides for prisoners with safety. But in reality it is not,” Tolekan Ismailova emphasized.