Kyrgyz human rights defenders say that investigative officers often fabricate cases of extremism and terrorism against citizens by planting banned literature on them.
According to the Human Rights Center “One World”, law enforcement agencies deny such facts, referring to the fact that they detain persons who have been specially registered for a long time and they are under the supervision because of committed extremist crimes.
“The State Penitentiary Service said that the number of people convicted of religious extremist crimes has decreased in the republic. But in 2018, the international organization for the protection of human rights, Human Rights Watch, made a recommendation to review the judicial verdicts of convicts of religious extremism,” emphasized the HRC “One World”.
Recently, this human rights organization tried to attract the attention of the public and competent authorities to the story of 48-year-old resident of Osh, K. A., who was sentenced to three years in prison for possession of extremist materials. At the same time, human rights activists pointed out that the permission to conduct a search, during which the materials were confiscated, was recognized as illegal.
At the beginning of January 2018, an investigator from Osh city police department appealed to the city court with a request to issue a sanction for a search of the place of residence of K.A. The document said that according to operational data, the materials of Hizbut-Tahrir, which is banned in Kyrgyzstan, are stored in the citizen’s house. Not a single fact has been cited in favor of this claim, human rights activists claim. The source of awareness remained unknown. It also remained unknown what the incident happened, whether the court found the materials extremist, as required by law. Therefore, the city court refused to issue sanctions for the search, but the regional court overturned this decision and issued a permit.
At the end of January, during the inspection of house, a DVD disc was confiscated, which was sent to one of the universities for an examination in order to “establish signs of counterfeiting of audiovisual works and software”. The examination determined the dates of the creation of files on the disk in the period of 2015-2016. According to the case file, these files were related to Hizbut-Tahrir. The owner of the house claimed that he was not related to this organization, that he had disks with Indian films at home, and they allegedly planted the disc with records of the banned organization.
The Supreme court revoked the permission of the regional court to issue a permit to conduct a search, finding the investigative steps unlawful. But during this period the process on the main charge began and the court recognized K.A. guilty of possession of extremist materials and sentenced him to 3 years in prison.
In the regional court of Osh, the defense requested that the Supreme court revoke the search warrant, which was not taken into account in the conviction. The defense asked the regional court to refer the case for a new trial due to newly discovered circumstances. But the regional court did not support the arguments of the defense and upheld the sentence – imprisonment. The case will be continued in the Supreme court.
Recall, that last year, Human Rights Watch stated that the Kyrgyz Criminal Code does not give a clear idea of what “extremism” or “extremist material”; it remains unclear. Which publication falls under the definition of extremist in Kyrgyzstan is decided by the court. This happens at the request of the prosecutor on the basis of an examination of the State Commission for Religious Affairs.
“Human rights activists have questions about the competence and impartiality of the members of this Commission. Our studies have found that in many cases, the authorities use this article to imprison people who did not commit any acts of violence, but simply kept banned literature or profess conservative trends in Islam,” the HRW report said.
From 2013 to 2018, the number of cases related to the storage of extremist materials was increased. HRW attributes this to a toughening article in the Criminal Code, from which the wording “for distribution” was deleted. After criticism from local and international human rights communities, the Kyrgyz Parliament again returned this wording to the new edition of the Criminal Code, which entered into force in 2019.
“Our study found that in many cases the authorities use this article to jail people who did not commit any acts of violence, but simply kept banned literature or videos, or professed to be conservative in Islam,” the report said.
At the same time, the government earlier decided to transfer the examination of materials on extremism to the State Forensic Service, but in Kyrgyzstan there is still no professional independent forensic-religious center that satisfies international requirements.
Human rights activists believe that an independent linguistic assessment of religious texts is not carried out carefully.
The Kyrgyz Ombudsman’s office also expresses concern that the examination of religious materials for extremist content is carried out by the State Commission for Religious Affairs.
“On the one hand, the Code of Criminal Procedure does not prohibit the involvement of experts with specialized knowledge in the examination. But there is a contradiction here, because civil servants do not have the right to engage in activities other than their main job. Nevertheless, today they are the ones who are preparing expert opinions on materials containing extremist content,” said Deputy Ombudsman of the Kyrgyz Republic Erlan Alimbaev.
At the same time, according to Alimbaev, at present, non-governmental organizations and other experts have developed a whole guide on the examination of religious materials. This document is approved by the Ministry of Justice of the Kyrgyz Republic and entered into its register.
“That is, today there is already a clear instruction how to do it, but there is no one who will do it. In my opinion, people who have received high-quality theological education will not go to work for a penny. But, we are now closely dealing with this issue so that the Center of expertise will receive high-level professionals,” said the Deputy Ombudsman.
He also noted that the Ombudsman’s Institute did not receive complaints about the quality of expert opinions on extremist materials.
“I cannot say anything about the quality of the examinations. There were some questions to other examinations. Otherwise, convicts most often complain that they were planted with extremist materials. There was no expert review of the content of the materials, only complaints about the fact that the State Committee for Religious Affairs is conducting it,” Alimbaev said.
We add that most often the arrest of suspects in possession of extremist materials is carried out by employees of the 10th Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs to Combat Extremism and employees of the State Committee for National Security.
Today in the prisons of Kyrgyzstan, there are 434 people who received different sentences for extremism and terrorism. The article 315 of the Criminal Code of the Kyrgyz Republic “Production, distribution of extremist materials” provides for punishment in the form of imprisonment for a term of two to seven years for “production, distribution, transportation or transfer of extremist materials or their purchase or storage for the purpose of distribution, use of symbols or attributes of extremist organizations, as well as through the Internet.”
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