Kazakhstan: Astana is increasingly willing to address torture issue

ASTANA. February 19. KAZINFORM. Kazakhstani human rights activists involved in a project to tackle torture in three Central Asian states have given a cautious welcome to Astana?s willingness to engage on the issue. Activists offer far less enthusiastic assessments when discussing the use of torture in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.

Activists gathered in Almaty on February 10 to mark to the conclusion of a two-year project, called Combating Torture in Central Asia, sponsored by Freedom House Europe, and conducted in conjunction with local partners. "This program was quite successful from our point of view," Yevgeniy Zhovtis, director of the Almaty-based International Bureau for Human Rights and Rule of Law, told a news conference. "There have been a number of specific steps taken by the authorities, and some advances in relations between society and the state." The 1 million euro project has resulted in the creation of a database to systemize collection of information on abusive behavior in closed institutions (including prisons, detention centers, homes for children and the elderly, and psychiatric clinics). The project also promoted public awareness via the media, engaged in advocacy work and forged contacts between local non-governmental organizations (NGOs), officials and international bodies working for torture prevention. The European Commission provided the bulk of funding, with other donors including the Irish and German governments; Kazakh Embassy in the USA informs referring to EurasiaNet. One important achievement, in Kazakhstan at least, has been the recognition of torture as an issue that needs to be addressed. "An understanding has arrived at last that in any closed institution a person is subject to the risk of torture or cruel treatment," Svetlana Kovlagina, chairwoman of the Committee for Monitoring Penal Reform and Human Rights and a member of the project?s monitoring group in Pavlodar, told the news conference. Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan have both ratified the Optional Protocol to the Convention Against Torture (OPCAT), binding the two countries to setting up a National Preventive Mechanism against torture within one year. In Kazakhstan a working group set up under the Ombudsman?s Office will be discussing how to achieve this by the October deadline. Rights activists hope for progress at a conference in Astana later in February. That meeting will also discuss how to implement recommendations of the UN Committee Against Torture, which called for a "zero-tolerance approach to the problem" after Kazakhstan reported to it in November. Rights activists also welcomed Kazakhstan?s formal recognition in 2008 of the competence of the Committee Against Torture, giving citizens the right to seek redress if they feel that Kazakhstan is failing in its obligations. Helping to spur Kazakhstan to address the torture issue is the fact that Astana will become chair of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe in 2010. Those involved in the project are not complacent. "Concluding the project work, defenders note that in the sphere of combating torture in Central Asia there are certain positive developments, but generally the situation remains difficult," the European Commission noted in a February 6 statement. Kazakhstan has a long way to go, Zhovtis pointed out, singling out two problems: the treatment of suspects and attitudes to allegations of abuse. "[Detainees] are so defenseless that pressure on them is considered natural. . . . The rights of the detainee and his treatment fall victim to the need to solve a crime," he told the news conference. Allegations of torture are not properly investigated, with views prevalent among law-enforcement bodies that detainees have a vested interest in making such allegations in an attempt to conceal their guilt. [Editor?s Note: Zhovtis also serves as board chair of the Soros Foundation-Kazakhstan, which is affiliated with the New York-based Open Society Institute (OSI). EurasiaNet operates under OSI?s auspices]. While project participants say Kazakhstan has shown good faith in tackling torture, they were more cautious about the other two countries involved in the project. "In Tajikistan, there was barely any noticeable improvement in ensuring regular and unhindered access to closed institutions for monitoring," the European Commission statement noted. "Institutions essentially remain closed off for human rights organizations." Kyrgyzstan also came in for some criticism. The commission statement quoted the concerns of Sardar Bagishbekov, the project?s regional coordinator and director of the Voice of Freedom network of human rights defenders, about abuse in Kyrgyzstan: "Certain deterioration is noticeable in Kyrgyzstan with respect to the situation of torture practice and the legal mechanisms of victim?s protection are still not working in practice." Bagishbekov noted some improvement in documenting torture allegations in Kyrgyzstan, where 87 cases were registered with the project over two years, against 92 cases in Tajikistan and 586 in Kazakhstan. The discrepancy between the figures for Kazakhstan and the other states, notwithstanding its larger population, suggests a greater willingness on the part of officials to grapple with the issue. Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan -- two other regional states in which human rights activists say physical abuse and forced psychiatric treatment is documented, a claim backed up by US State Department Country Reports on Human Rights Practises -- were not involved in the project. "We did not include Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan due to the fact that we did not feel that it is realistic to expect to meet the project?s objectives in those two countries," Director of Freedom House Europe Vladimir Shkolnikov told EurasiaNet. "Given the overall environment, we did not feel that it would be possible to create NGO coalitions to combat torture in those two countries, nor would it be possible to have increased media coverage of the issue," Shkolnikov continued. "We did not feel that at the time of the project?s conception (over 2 years ago) the authorities in Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan would be responsive to the project, either, unlike in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, which did ratify OPCAT in the course of the project?s implementation." The project has succeeded in getting torture onto the agenda in some regional states, but there is a long road ahead. "The effectiveness of reforms will depend largely on the states? political will to heed and implement the recommendations of the defenders and of the UN Committee Against Torture recommendations as well as the full implementation of the OPCAT requirements," said Shkolnikov, in remarks quoted by the European Commission statement.