In Kyrgyzstan, a number of particularly cruel torture was reduced

On Wednesday, September 18, the Kyrgyz parliament heard the annual report of the National Center of the Republic on the Prevention of torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment for 2018.

The annual report to the deputies was presented by the Director of the National Center for the Prevention of torture Nurdin Sulaimanov. In his speech, he noted that the report was prepared on the basis of comprehensive monitoring of the situation in the field of the prevention of torture and cruel treatment, made by analyzing materials obtained as a result of preventive visits to places of deprivation and restriction of freedom.

“In 2018, our center received 238 complaints, most of which, namely 123 complaints were related to the use of torture. There were also reports of cruel treatment (52), bad conditions (24) and others (39). The staff of our center managed to collect such data during preventive visits directly from the alleged victims of torture. The absolute majority, 91.9% of the written complaints of torture were about the use of torture by police officers,” Sulaimanov said.

Having listened to the report, the deputy Bakirdin Subanbekov noticed that the report of the National Center for the Prevention of torture contained only negative aspects.

“Are there any positive changes?” Subanbekov asked.

Nurdin Sulaimanov answered the parliamentarian’s question that there are positive aspects, but these changes have occurred in 2019, and therefore are not reflected in the presented report. ACCA contacted the Director of the National Center for the Prevention of torture to find out how the situation has changed this year.

“From the beginning of the year to the present moment, we have received 131 complaints related to the use of torture and cruel treatment. In the same period of last year, we had much more statements. If everything goes this way, I think that the number of complaints based on the results of the year will be lower than in 2018,” Nurdin Sulaimanov told ACCA’s representative.

Sulaimanov explained that in 2018, the opposite tendency was observed. He emphasized that if earlier 80% of requests to the Center were from the places of deprivation of liberty. Today 57% are complaints from relatives and detained people who are in temporary detention places, but they are not in prison; in their cases, such a preventive measure was not chosen.

“In addition to reducing the number of complaints, even if these data are preliminary, I can also emphasize another important point – the decrease of complaints of torture using strangulation with plastic bags, beating on the heels and beating with the use of bottles with water. Among the torture, which so far we have not been able to eradicate: banal beatings and psychological pressure in the form of threats to throw for crime on a detained that he did not commit,” the expert added.

According to Nurdin Sulaimanov, based on the results of 2018, criminal cases were initiated on 11 cases of torture, two of them are currently in court.

“The situation with torture in Kyrgyzstan has changed due to these cases. Previously, government officials felt their impunity. Now they see that they can answer for their actions. An important role in the positive changes was played by the legislation adopted by the new Criminal Code. One of the important innovations is that investigators can no longer detain people without notifying relatives and inviting a lawyer. Previously, they could invite a person supposedly to a conversation, which could last up to three hours. Moreover, no one knew what was happening behind the closed doors of the investigator at that moment. This was used by unscrupulous employees of the authorities who used this time to get confessions,” said Sulaimanov.

At the same time, the Director of the National Center emphasized that work is being done to improve the situation, but despite this, torture cannot be completely eliminated.

“I think we still have a lot of work to do. I see some change for the better, but we must do more in this direction. And with regret I want to note that in some institutions, crime detection and high rates remain more important than the methods that are used to achieve them,” concluded Nurdin Sulaimanov.