You have commented 339 times on Rantburg.

Your Name
Your e-mail (optional)
Website (optional)
My Original Nic        Pic-a-Nic        Sorry. Comments have been closed on this article.
Bold Italic Underline Strike Bullet Blockquote Small Big Link Squish Foto Photo
Submit your comments on this article
Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia
Kyrgyz to give refugees to Uzbeks, UN fears torture
2005-06-24
The UN never found torture in Iraq but it's really good at fighting it elsewhere ...
BISHKEK - Kyrgyzstan plans to hand 29 refugees who fled Uzbek troops back to its authoritarian neighbour, its top prosecutor said on Thursday, ignoring a United Nations warning that they may be tortured or executed.

Kyrgyz Prosecutor General Azimbek Beknazarov said the refugees were criminals who broke out of jail last month during an uprising in the eastern Uzbek city of Andizhan that was put down bloodily by troops and police. "These are criminals, they killed people," Beknazarov told reporters in the Kyrgyz capital Bishkek. "They need to be punished, their place is in prison."
"Get the hell out and stay out!"
He said they would be handed over in a week's time. His country sent four other asylum seekers back two weeks ago.

Around 500 Uzbeks fled across the border from Andizhan to southern Kyrgyzstan on May 14, a day after police opened fire on a crowd of armed rebels and civilian protesters, killing around 500 people according to witnesses. Uzbekistan says 176 people were killed in its police action against what it says were "terrorists" and "bandits". By either account it was the country's worst violence since it became an independent state when the Soviet Union broke up in 1991.

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour urged the Kyrgyz government to reconsider. "There are well-founded reasons to believe that asylum-seekers in Kyrgyzstan, in particular those currently in detention, may face an imminent risk of grave human rights violations, including torture and extra-judicial and summary executions, if returned to Uzbekistan," she said in a statement.

Arbour, a former UN war crimes prosecutor, said it would be a breach of the UN Convention against Torture, which Kyrgyzstan has signed, to send the refugees back especially as they were eyewitnesses to the events in Andizhan.
Eyewitnesses? Wonder if they were participants?
Two weeks ago, the UN refugee agency and human rights groups criticised Kyrgyzstan for handing back the first four refugees, all of whom were registered as asylum seekers. That decision breached the 1951 Refugee Convention and Kyrgyz national law, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees head of mission in Kyrgyzstan said at the time.

Kyrgyzstan, which shares part of the Ferghana Valley with more powerful neighbour Uzbekistan, has come under pressure from Uzbekistan to hand back some of the refugees, while the West has urged it to live up to commitments to protect them.

UN High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres, in the same statement as Arbour, urged the Kyrgyz government to consider very carefully whether refugees were criminals or people fleeing persecution. "There must be a proper procedure, not a hasty effort to rubber stamp a politically expedient ending to the current tensions with Uzbekistan," he said.
You guys are in for it now, you got not one, but two UN High Commisioners on your case.
Posted by:Steve White

00:00