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HRW: Authorities in Kyrgyzstan failed to ensure justice after June events 2010

Authorities in Kyrgyzstan have failed to take necessary, if difficult, steps toward ensuring justice and accountability for abuses committed during and after the outbreak of violence in southern Kyrgyzstan a decade ago. An international human rights organization Human Rights Watch said in a statement.

Between June 10 and 14, 2010, ethnic violence raged in southern Kyrgyzstan. Over 400 people were killed and nearly two thousand homes were destroyed. But the authorities have failed to ensure accountability for crimes committed during the violence, or justice for the people arbitrarily arrested and convicted in trials marred by widespread allegations of ill-treatment and torture in the aftermath.

Justice has been elusive for so many people who suffered horrific crimes during and after the violent events of June 2010.

Mihra Rittmann, senior Central Asia researcher at Human Rights Watch

«While southern Kyrgyzstan has long ceased to be a site of open ethnic conflict, until there is accountability for past abuses, there will always be legitimate concerns about the prospect of long-term stability in the region,» she believes.

As human rights defenders note, the Kyrgyz government asserted in its 2016 report to the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD), that «All participants in criminal proceedings in Kyrgyzstan enjoy equal rights and have equal opportunities...» and that «there have been no reported instances of violations by judicial bodies of the right to a fair trial in criminal cases connected with the June 2010 events.»

However, the human rights organization, Bir Duino, cited official data to CERD showing that over 70 percent of the people criminally prosecuted in connection with the June 2010 violence were ethnic Uzbek. The group further noted that out of 105 people prosecuted for killings committed during the violence, 97 are ethnic Uzbek and seven are Kyrgyz.

Ten years on, the ethnic Uzbek community in southern Kyrgyzstan retains an underlying sense of fear and insecurity, especially with respect to law enforcement and the judiciary.

Human Rights Watch

«The Kyrgyz government should commit to ensuring accountability for its citizens, regardless of their ethnicity, and take meaningful steps toward addressing outstanding grievances of the ethnic Uzbek community in southern Kyrgyzstan,» the organization says.

Kyrgyz authorities should ensure thorough and impartial investigations into the use of torture during investigations and set up a review process for all criminal cases related to the clashes in which there were credible allegations of torture and other human rights violations against the defendants that may make the verdicts unsound.

«Peace and stability in southern Kyrgyzstan today are undermined by a legacy of injustice,» Mihra Rittmann said. «If the Kyrgyz authorities want to definitively turn the page, they need to do the hard work of confronting past injustices, and provide accountability and closure for all the victims of the June 2010 violence and its aftermath.»

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