In Kyrgyzstan, police officers beat man for video taken on phone

32-year-old resident of Kara-Suu was detained and beaten by employees of district police station of Kara-Suu. The reason for the detention was the fact of taking a video near a grocery store. This is reported by the human rights movement “One World”.

According to the victim, he was waiting for his turn at the entrance to the grocery store. At that time, a police officer came and shouted at the saleswoman to take the goods inside the store, and then to the people in the line. The man decided to film the unworthy behavior of a government official on his phone’s camera. The policeman, seeing that, ordered his officers to detain him.

“I warned them that I had a displacement of my left shoulder, but they began to beat me in the car, beat me all over my body, kicked me in the groin. There were employees in civilian clothes in the car, one employee was filming me,” the victim wrote in his statement. “They didn’t explain what my fault was, they continued to hit on the face, stomach, kidneys, legs. I screamed in pain.”

The man was released only after the police made sure that he had no video.

“After the beating, I felt bad, the whole body hurt a lot. Relatives called an ambulance doctor, to whom I told what happened to me. The doctor transmitted this message to the same police department. After that, police officers came to my house demanding that I come to the police station. I am afraid for my life and health, and for the safety of my family,” the victim told human rights activists.

The man filed an application for beating at the State Committee for National Security in the city of Osh and Osh region. He was assigned forensic and psychological-psychiatric expertise.