Tolekan Ismailova, head of the human rights organization “Citizens Against Corruption” states that the number of illegal arrests and detentions have rapidly increased in Bishkek lately. Human rights activists decided to make several visits to the police temporary detention center in Bishkek under the assistance of the Human Rights Commission under Kyrgyz President.

The conditions under which the detainees are being kept were awful, they explained. The building has no heating whatsoever. About 300 people are being kept under custody there and thirty-six people are kept in just one of the cells. Human rights activists say people are being detained for indefinite periods of time for unknown crimes without any court ruling.

The activists are closely cooperating with each other in order to hold meetings to discuss the overall situation and express their concern.

The Council explained that this move is motivated by “new facts discovered, which confirm the wide scale nature of arbitrary arrests and detentions under different pretences and fact that detainees are being kept in cruel, inhumane and humiliating conditions.”

As AKIpress informs, human rights activists have had to appeal to UN Special Rapporteurs “in connection with mass scale of arbitrary arrests and detentions, the pervasive practice of keeping detainees in cruel, inhumane and humiliating conditions, Kyrgyzstan’s failure to respond to complaints on arbitrary arrests and detentions and the state’s failure to guarantee fair public trial by a competent and impartial court. The United Nations do not recognize Kyrgyzstan’s courts as fully independent.”

The appeal urges UN to come to Kyrgyzstan and visit detention centre in Bishkek.

Leaders of Ata Meken party have also raised their concern over the human rights situation in the country. Joomart Saparbaev, member of the party notes:

Illegal detention of young participants of peaceful campaigns ‘I do not believe…’ and bringing them to administrative responsibility has become the indicator of “democratic” transformations which Kyrgyzstan has.