Washington’s Human Rights Award for Azimjan Askarov Sparks Kyrgyzstan’s Anger

When the U.S. State Department announced earlier this month that it had given its annual Human Rights Defenders Award to a 64-year-old imprisoned rights advocate in Kyrgyzstan, the reaction from the Kyrgyz government came swiftly. Within a week, Prime Minister Temir Sariev signed a decree cancelling a 1993 agreement with Washington on bilateral cooperation, a move the U.S. embassy in Bishkek said would affect a range of support programs.

At the center of the row is Azimjan Askarov, recognized by Amnesty International as a prisoner of conscience and the most well-known political prisoner in Kyrgyzstan. Askarov has been serving a life sentence in Kyrgyzstan for the past five years, convicted in a manifestly unfair trial on charges of participation in violence involving local ethnic Uzbek communities that erupted in southern Kyrgyzstan in June 2010.

The Human Rights Defenders Award highlighted Askarov’s record: he set up a local group in the south that monitored reports of police brutality, its work leading to several successful investigations. After the 2010 violence broke out, resulting—according to independent sources—in over 400 deaths, it noted that Askarov “documented acts of death and destruction during the interethnic violence … before being himself arrested on charges connected to those events.”

The painful details of what happened next can be found in Askarov’s complaint over his treatment to the United Nations Human Rights Committee, brought by the Justice Initiative and local lawyer Nurbek Toktakunov.

Askarov’s trial, alongside seven other defendants, was a mockery of justice. Independent monitors reported that during the court proceedings, relatives of the deceased police officer constantly threatened the defense team, the defense witnesses and the defendants themselves. The defense lawyers were unable to cross-examine witnesses, make applications, or present their evidence. After the first hearing, police officers entered the metal cage where the defendants were held and beat them in the courtroom. Later that evening, the defendants were beaten again for several hours in the backyard of the police station where they were held.

Subsequently, Askarov was given a life sentence, which was then confirmed at appeal—his treatment before the courts reflecting the fair trial violations common for cases related to 2010 violence.

The state’s response to the Human Rights Defender Award for Askarov condemned it as an act “aimed at undermining the process of strengthening the unity of the people and harmony in the country,” linking it to the end of Bishkek’s strategic importance to the U.S. as a transit station for supporting troops in neighboring Afghanistan.

Whatever the geopolitical background, the dismissive response to the award sends a disturbing message to those who hope that Bishkek will soon address the unresolved legacy of the 2010 violence, instead of continuing to suppress all dialogue. In addition to Askarov, dozens of other ethnic Uzbeks remain in prison serving sentences that were handed out in the aftermath of the trouble after biased and illegitimate trials—underlining a fundamental failure to address the events of 2010. Ban Ki-moon, the UN Secretary General, has urged Kyrgyzstan to establish an impartial investigation into the 2010 ethnic clashes that “still divide the nation.”

After five years in prison, there is growing concern over Askarov’s deteriorating health. When the UN Secretary General visited in June, Kyrgyz human rights organizations launched a new appeal to the government to immediately release him due to his health, urging the government to take a “historic opportunity to remedy the five years of discrimination” against Askarov and his family.

Kyrgyzstan should immediately release Azimjan Askarov, review his case and review the cases of others sentenced after the violence of June, 2010. Facing the past and addressing the injustices suffered on all sides is the only way to genuinely strengthen the unity of the people of Kyrgyzstan.

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