Human rights defenders are persecuted in Kyrgyzstan

In Issyk-Kul region, employees of the State Committee for National Security detained the head of the NGO “Ventus” Kamil Ruziev. The press service of the State Committee for National Security informed that the human rights activist is suspected of forgery of documents and fraud.

Kamil Ruziev was detained on the evening of May 29 in Karakol near the courthouse, where his lawsuit was examined against the SCNS’s officers and the prosecutor of the city of Karakol. Namely this case, as the human rights activist told the local media, was the reason for instituting criminal proceedings against him. According to him, investigators, connected with persons against whom the anti-torture fighter filed a lawsuit, took part in his detention near the courthouse.

Ruziev appealed to the court due to the fact that the SCNS’s officers and the prosecutor ignored his complaints against the former investigator Nurbek Tokushev, who several times threatened the life of the human rights activist. Tokushev was fired after threatening Ruziev with a weapon – he aimed the pistol to his head. Tokushev was accused of knocking out a confession from a foreigner through torture, and it was Kamil Ruziev who represented the interests of the victim.

The reason for the detention of Ruziev also adds to the ambiguities. According to official information, he was sent to the temporary detention center of the Internal Affairs Department of Karakol for 48 hours on suspicion of committing crimes under the articles “Fraud” and “Forgery of documents” of the Criminal Code of the Kyrgyz Republic. However, the SCNS didn’t mention who suffered from the actions of the fighter against torture and who is the plaintiff. Instead, the agency in its press release called on the victims to respond and inform them.

At the same time, the detainee’s lawyer claims that the article “Fraud” doesn’t appear in the case at all. Moreover, at the court hearing on May 31, the investigator said that Ruziev was a witness.

Being at the pre-trial detention center, Kamil Ruziev went on a hunger strike. This was reported to the media by his son Azat Ruziev. He said that the family tried to give him food, but he refused to accept it.

In the same period, an information campaign was launched in social networks of the Kyrgyz segment of Internet by the civilian community in support of the human rights activist with the hashtag “Free Kamil!”.

On May 31, the court of Karakol, despite all the violations, recognized the detention of the anti-torture fighter as lawful and sent him under house arrest for two months.

“The Kyrgyz authorities began to persecute human rights defenders in June 2010, then because of the interethnic conflict, we couldn’t quickly and effectively defend Azimzhan Askarov. The illegal detention of Kamil Ruziev is very similar to Askarov’s case. If the public didn’t provide timely assistance and support, Kamil would have been imprisoned exactly like Askarov for a long time,” Tolekan Ismailova, a human rights activist, commented on the situation.

She recalled that in March 2015, the SCNS’s department of Osh city and Osh region checked the office of the human rights movement “One World”. In addition, security officials made a search of the organization’s lawyers houses.

“Later, the authorities recognized the report of the human rights movement “One World”, which was prepared together with the anti-discrimination center “Memorial”, as extremist. They included it in the register on a level with ISIS on the website of the Ministry of Justice of the Kyrgyz Republic. Courts against human rights defenders were held secretly. And all this was done by the State Committee for National Security of the Kyrgyz Republic. We are grateful to lawyers and attorneys, networks of solidarity! We won all the cases, but, unfortunately, the officials went unpunished so far,” said the human rights activist.

According to her, the current detentions of human rights activists indicate that the authorities want to narrow the space for civil society organizations before the election.

“This is all happening against the background of the promotion of very disturbing legislative initiatives that, oddly enough, come from the Parliament. This is a bill against NGOs, a bill against journalists. We hope that these bills will be recalled. Indeed, in Kyrgyzstan, there is a history of the development of civil society, and citizens will not give up their freedoms just like that,” Ismailova said.

According to her, now human rights defenders are faced with the task of working with focus groups as actively as possible, looking for allies among the political elite, the business community, working actively with journalists to preserve and promote the rights and freedoms of Kyrgyz citizens, as well as inform society and active citizens about the decision-making process at all levels of government.

The MP Natalya Nikitenko also spoke in support of Kamil Ruziev and appealed to the Prosecutor General’s office with a request to ensure a full and objective verification of the legality of the actions of the SCNS to detain the human rights defender and respect his rights.

According to the deputy, recently, the State Committee for National Security has been actively involved in the detention of well-known civil activists, lawyers, and records “voluntary apologies”; this is cause for concern. She emphasized that all attacks on civil activists look suspicious also because they are taking place against the background of the early consideration of the scandalous amendment to the law on NGOs.

“The practice of artificially civil activists’ discrediting, unfortunately, is not new for Kyrgyzstan and usually leads to very negative consequences and social tension,” the parliamentarian concluded.

It’s worth adding that the detention of Kamil Ruziev was preceded by a no less obscure situation that occurred with another Kyrgyz human rights activist, the head of the municipal enterprise “City parks” Kalicha Umuralieva.

On May 28, some media, citing their own sources in law enforcement agencies, reported that Kalicha Umuralieva was detained red-handed while receiving a bribe, and a search was being conducted in her office. However, later the human rights activist reported that she had been summoned for questioning by the SCNS, where she was acquainted with the decision to institute criminal proceedings under the article 237 “Commercial bribery”.