The Coalition Against Torture in Kyrgyzstan has published data from the State Penitentiary Service (SPS) on the number of prisoners already released under the amnesty. It turned out that in three months from the date of the entry into force of the amnesty law, only 44 people were released and 483 convicts had their outstanding sentences reduced.
Lawyer of the Coalition Against Torture Arsen Ambaryan commented to ACCA on the interim results of amnesty for Kyrgyz prisoners.
“The information provided by the State Penitentiary Service indicates that the expectations of society to unload the prison system in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic did not materialize. First of all, it is necessary to note the poor wording of the law itself. For example, the first article of the law provides for exemption from punishment for seven categories of persons. The status of these persons, in some cases, requires confirmation by various certificates from “outside”. For example, how to certify or confirm the fact of disability of I and II groups, if the medical and social examination (MSEC) is not carried out in places of detention? ”- says the lawyer.
He also considers the wording of article 5 of the amnesty law to be poor. It limits the use of amnesty for persons suffering from diseases that pose a danger to others (tuberculosis, infectious diseases, venereal diseases).
“Amnesty is applied to such persons only after the completion of the course of treatment. It is not clear why the legislator has expanded the list of diseases to cover the entire class of infectious diseases, of which there are about a hundred, including tuberculosis and venereal diseases. HIV/AIDS, for example, does not have a strictly defined course of treatment. Antiretroviral therapy is prescribed for life, as a combination of drugs that suppress HIV as much as possible and inhibit the progression of the disease. Restrictions on the use of amnesty for treatable diseases are not effective for HIV because the disease is not treatable and is not transmitted randomly, ”Ambaryan said.
Such restrictions, he states, cannot be called objective and reasonable, since they are obviously discriminatory.
“Persons listed in Article 1 of the amnesty law, if they have a status, will be eligible for amnesty on condition that they pass two filters, i.e. two lists of a multitude of crimes, the commission of which blocks the path to amnesty within the meaning of article 1. The first filter is the crimes listed in article 2 of the amnesty law and the crimes listed in reference article 7 (article 6 of the law on general principles of amnesty). And we come to the third filter – the presence of outstanding material claims. But how to pay off material claims if there are not enough jobs in places of confinement !? How can a disabled person of group I, for example, pay off the damage? ”The expert wonders.
When considering the bill, the State Penitentiary Service reported that 1958 convicts throughout the republic could count on amnesty.
“And the real result of the application of the amnesty for 148 persons who could be released under Article 1 of the Amnesty Law is 44 people! 78 people have pending pecuniary claims. The situation is similar with convicts falling under the amnesty under Article 3: 697 out of 1,818 people have outstanding material obligations and, therefore, they do not automatically fall under the amnesty, ”the human rights activist explains.
In order to count on amnesty, says Arsen Hambaryan, prisoners must go through several so-called filters. And this, according to him, is almost impossible.
“Out of 780 people who tried to go through all these filters, today reduced terms got only 483 prisoners. This is the intermediate result of the amnesty. And now, in my opinion, there is even no point in discussing the topic of unloading the penitentiary system. At the time of the adoption of the law, 1,000 people were awaiting sentencing in pre-trial detention centers. And all these 1000 people in three months smoothly flowed into the colonies – no unloading took place, ”sums up the ACCA interlocutor.
We recall that since the beginning of the pandemic, the Coalition Against Torture has repeatedly called on parliament to speed up the adoption of the bill and disseminate its application as widely as possible. The parliament did not heed the recommendations of human rights defenders.
“Today, the country has emerged from the acute phase of the pandemic with significant budget losses. A broad amnesty could reduce the costs of the penitentiary system. But alas, we continue to maintain a huge number of those serving sentences that are beyond the capacity of the country’s economy, spending the funds so necessary for the budget, ”says Arsen Ambaryan.
It should be noted that, earlier the deputy of the Kyrgyz parliament Dastan Bekeshev stated that Kyrgyzstan spends up to $ 3.8 million a year on food for prisoners. To reduce costs, it is necessary to release from 30 to 50 percent of the special contingent, but this amnesty releases less than 1 percent, and only for some time.
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