Kyrgyzstan: UN Committee recognized the man as torture victim after eight years

Having exhausted all legal methods within the country to prosecute internal affairs officers for torture, Kurmanbek Chynybekov, with the assistance of lawyers from the human rights organization “Spravedlivost” [“Justice”], appealed to the UN Human Rights Committee in 2012. Eight years later, the international organization recognized him as a victim of torture.

In 2007, Kurmanbek Chynybekov was convicted under the article “Cattle theft”. According to him, in order to obtain a confession, three officers of Aksy District Department of Internal Affairs tortured him.

“Having put on handcuffs, they punched him in the head, stomach and kidneys. They beat him on the head with a heavy ashtray. They blocked the air with a plastic bag, beat him on the heels with a truncheon, forced him to chew crumbled capsicum. The man fainted,” the case file says.

The man wrote the statement addressed to the prosecutor of Aksy region to bring police officers to justice. However, the supervisory authority refused to initiate a criminal case. Moreover, all three instances of the court, where Kurmanbek Chynybekov filed the complaint, upheld the decision of the Prosecutor’s office.

Having exhausted all legal methods in Kyrgyzstan to bring the perpetrators to justice, the man turned to the human rights organization “Spravedlivost” [“Justice”]. The lawyers helped him to prepare an appeal to the UN Human Rights Committee. On December 20, 2012, the complaint was sent to the international organization. For eight long years, the consideration went on. As a result, Kurmanbek Chynybekov was recognized as a victim of torture by the Committee.