Kyrgyzstan: human rights activists have criticized bill on extremism

The human rights movement “One World (Bir Duino)” and the partnership network “People who change the world!” posted an appeal to the President of Kyrgyzstan on their official website. In it, human rights activists point to a number of omissions in the new draft law “On counteracting extremist activity”.

The bill, initiated by the Ministry of Internal Affairs, was submitted for public discussion at the end of last year. According to lawyers who analyzed the document, the proposed changes could negatively affect the situation with respect for human rights in Kyrgyzstan.

Human rights activists are concerned that the concept of extremism is additionally defined in the bill as “an ideology aimed at achieving … anti-constitutional actions”.

“It doesn’t mention calls for violence, and it isn’t known whether it is directed against state power. If we proceed from the fact that ideology is the systematized interests, worldviews and ideas of political subjects, then according to the proposed bill, it may become mandatory for the rest. The imposition of an ideology can lead to the absolute control of the state over all aspects of public and private life,” the authors of the appeal note.

They also point to the vagueness of the wording “anti-constitutional actions”. “It’s not clear what actions the initiators of the new bill have in mind. We are alarmed that due to the legal ambiguity of understanding “ideology” and “anti-constitutional actions”, the bill may become an instrument used to violate freedom of speech, opinions and religion. And any restrictions on human rights must be justified, legal and consistent with democratic values,” the human rights activists say.

In addition, One World notes that according to one of the points of the proposed bill, the presence of signs of extremism in the activities of the media may become the basis for the termination of the activities of media organizations.

“Against the background of the lack of a clear definition of such concepts as: extremism, ideology, anti-constitutional actions, the proposed bill can be used to stop the work of media that criticize officials. It’s necessary to take into account the existing law enforcement practice in counteracting extremism,” the human rights activists note.

They refer to their own experience: most cases of extremist crimes, accompanied by One World, are related to the storage or distribution of extremist material.

“In almost all cases, religious informational materials allegedly found during a search, viewing electronic messages on social networks, and studying the content of citizens’ accounts were used as justification for the charge. According to these criminal cases, the conclusions of religious studies expertise have been and are being presented as justification. Although the function of religious expertise doesn’t include the identification of elements of violence in the studied materials and their orientation against the authorities,” the human rights movement states.

In practice, in criminal cases involving the storage or distribution of extremist materials, imputed informational materials are not recognized by the court as extremist.

“Although in accordance with Article 13 of the Law of the Kyrgyz Republic “On counteracting extremist activities” and Chapter 251 of the Civil Procedure Code of the Kyrgyz Republic, information materials can only be recognized as extremist by a court. There are no other regulations that would empower other state bodies to recognize information materials as extremist. The accusation is limited only by the fact that the religious expertise in its conclusion indicated the relevance of the information material to one or another banned organization. At the same time, these relevant materials usually don’t contain calls for violence and statements against the authorities,” the authors of the appeal point out.

One World summarizes, “Considering the current practice in Kyrgyzstan of applying the Law “On counteracting extremist activities”, if the proposed changes are adopted, the concept of “ideology” will become a method of criminal prosecution in extremist cases.”