Kyr­gyzs­tan press­es ahead with pros­e­cu­tion of bor­der deal crit­ics despite hunger strike

Over two days, on Decem­ber 26 and 27, Bishkek city court ruled to extend cus­to­di­al peri­ods for 20 detainees, all of whom were sin­gled out for arrest ear­li­er this year, fol­low­ing their oppo­si­tion to a bor­der delim­i­ta­tion deal with neigh­bor­ing Uzbekistan.

The rul­ings arrived while the detainees were still observ­ing a hunger strike start­ed almost two weeks ear­li­er. One of the accused, Orozaiym Nar­ma­to­va, a for­mer MP, faint­ed and banged her head against the steel-barred defen­dants’ cage in court before hear­ings began. Nar­ma­to­va was tak­en to hos­pi­tal and her hear­ing was post­poned by one day.

The court declined to uphold a request from Narmatova’s lawyer for the ex-deputy to be placed under med­ical super­vi­sion or home arrest until her health improved and was instead returned to her jail cell.

“This is just awful. They could have released a woman in that state to hos­pi­tal at least,” said Kasiyet Mamyr­bai, the daugh­ter of Rita Karasar­to­va, an anti-cor­rup­tion activist who is also among the detainees. “The author­i­ties are just try­ing to ter­ror­ize us all and teach us all to be slaves.”

The deten­tion appeal hear­ings were dom­i­nat­ed by high drama.

Anara Sura­no­va, the moth­er of anoth­er detained activist, Per­izat Sura­no­va, wept as she plead­ed before the court for her daugh­ter to sus­pend her hunger strike.

“I beg you, daugh­ter, start eat­ing, think about your­self. These peo­ple do not under­stand your words about the coun­try and the home­land,” Sura­no­va shouted.

Oth­er par­tic­i­pants of the hunger strike includ­ed a for­mer judge, Klara Sooronkulo­va, and oppo­si­tion politi­cians Ravshan Jeen­bekov, Bek­tur Asanov and Akyl Aitbayev.

Pros­e­cu­tors claim to have evi­dence that the detained sus­pects were plot­ting to use pub­lic dis­con­tent about a land­mark deal with Uzbek­istan on bor­der demar­ca­tion, which will entail relin­quish­ing de fac­to con­trol over an impor­tant Sovi­et-built reser­voir, to sow wide­spread unrest.

The only evi­dence of what the arrest­ed activists and politi­cians were plan­ning that has been leaked out to the pub­lic so far, how­ev­er, is a series of inter­cept­ed con­ver­sa­tions appear­ing to focus on the plan­ning of ral­lies. Demon­stra­tions are per­mit­ted under Kyr­gyz law.

The detainees have said that in the absence of evi­dence, pros­e­cu­tors have lim­it­ed them­selves to bad­ger­ing them for confessions.

“They say to me: ‘Admit your guilt.’ Give me at least one bit of proof that I am guilty, and I will imme­di­ate­ly plead guilty. But they just don’t have any proof. They sim­ply have noth­ing,” Sooronkulo­va told the court.

This cur­rent gov­ern­ment has spe­cial insight into how tur­moil can be exploit­ed to polit­i­cal ends. Street tur­bu­lence sparked by unhap­pi­ness over the con­duct of par­lia­men­tary elec­tions in Octo­ber 2020 ush­ered the way for incum­bent Pres­i­dent Sadyr Japarov to seize pow­er.

Mak­ing an exam­ple of this group looks like an attempt to put an indef­i­nite end to Kyrgyzstan’s peri­od­ic cycle of extra-par­lia­men­tary regime changes, of the kind that occurred in 2005, 2010 and two years ago.

Fol­low­ing the rul­ing, a group of detainees released a state­ment to argue that the intent of pros­e­cu­tors was to crim­i­nal­ize their “legit­i­mate exer­cise of the right to free­dom of speech, asso­ci­a­tion and peace­ful assembly.”

The cur­rent lead­er­ship in Kyr­gyzs­tan is a “tyran­ny with clear fea­tures of a ter­ror­ist regime,” the sev­en detainees stated.

On Decem­ber 28, the Nation­al Cen­ter for the Pre­ven­tion of Tor­ture, an NGO, announced that 16 out of the 17 peo­ple con­duct­ing the hunger strike had once more resumed tak­ing food. Only one activist, Marat Baya­zov, is said to still be refus­ing food.

Jeen­bekov, the oppo­si­tion politi­cian, wrote in a hand­writ­ten note that although the hunger strike had failed to achieve its imme­di­ate aim – osten­si­bly the release of the detainees – crit­ics of the gov­ern­ment would con­tin­ue to fight for a free Kyrgyzstan.

If Pres­i­dent Japarov is fazed by any of this, he is not show­ing it.

In an inter­view grant­ed to a state news out­let ear­li­er this month, he again described the detainees, who have yet to go on tri­al, as coup-plotters.

“More than 90 per­cent of those cur­rent­ly under arrest took part in closed dis­cus­sions on issues relat­ing to the bor­der more than once. They should know bet­ter than me that the issue of the Kem­pir-Abad [reser­voir] was resolved in our favor,’’ he told Kabar news agency in an inter­view pub­lished on Decem­ber 17. “Despite this and because they could not find any oth­er grounds for mount­ing a coup d’état, they clung to Kempir-Abad.”

The argu­ment made by Japarov and his prox­ies over Kem­pir-Abad is that although Uzbek­istan will secure for­mal con­trol over the reser­voir, Kyr­gyzs­tan will reserve the right to joint­ly man­age the water with­in and that Bishkek has fur­ther­more received gen­er­ous allo­ca­tions of lands as part of a broad­er bor­der deal.

As to the appeals of moth­ers mak­ing peti­tions on behalf of their detained daugh­ters, Japarov was dismissive.

“Why didn’t the par­ents who are address­ing me today turn to their daugh­ters with the words: ‘Be civ­il, don’t slan­der peo­ple. Why do you want a coup?’ Why didn’t they edu­cate them before it was too late?” Japarov said.

While this polit­i­cal dra­ma plays out, the Kyr­gyz-Uzbek bor­der deal is all but done and dust­ed. The agree­ment has already been rat­i­fied in both coun­tries. While the process was accom­pa­nied by much con­tro­ver­sy in Kyr­gyzs­tan, it was com­plet­ed with­out the slight­est effort at a pub­lic con­ver­sa­tion in Uzbekistan.

The Kyr­gyz gov­ern­ment announced on Decem­ber 27 that del­e­ga­tions from both coun­tries have been hold­ing final tech­ni­cal con­sul­ta­tions in the south­ern Kyr­gyz city of Osh ahead of the for­mal­i­ties around demarcation.

“As a result of the [con­sul­ta­tions], a pro­to­col was signed. A fol­low-up meet­ing will be held on the ter­ri­to­ry of Uzbek­istan,” the gov­ern­ment said.