UN: Uzbeks in Kyrgyzstan facing torture, beatings and other human rights violations

UN: Uzbeks face torture, abuses in Kyrgyzstan

GENEVA — The United Nations says it has received reports of torture and other atrocities by Kyrgyzstan forces against ethnic Uzbeks in the Central Asian nation.

Hundreds of Uzbeks are being imprisoned because of their ethnicity, and there are reports of forced confessions, beatings, police intimidation of families and extortion, U.N. human rights chief Navi Pillay said in a statement Tuesday.

Hundreds of minority Uzbeks were killed in rampages last month by ethnic Kyrgyz and hundreds of thousands of Uzbeks fled their homes ahead of arson mobs. Tensions are still noticeable in the southern part of the country.

Pillay said local authorities are “routinely turning a blind eye” to abuses, including doctors refusing to provide medical care.

In response, Kyrgyz government spokesman Farid Niyazov said a number of criminal investigations have been launched into rights violations by police and military forces. He did not elaborate.

Prosecutors, police and security services have been told to firmly deal “with any violations of citizens’ rights, regardless of their ethnic background,” he said Tuesday.

“The government is aware of these problems … and for this reason we welcome the arrival of police advisors” from the OSCE, he said, adding that the government supports an independent investigation into the ethnic violence.

The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe is planning to send 50 police advisers to southern Kyrgyzstan — a plan rejected Tuesday by Kyrgyzstan’s acting defense minister, who called instead for cooperation with regional security organizations dominated by Russia and China.

Acting Defense Minister Ismal Isakov spoke as he stepped down from his post to run for a seat in parliamentary elections next October.

Kyrgyzstan has endured months of turbulence since former President Kurmanbek Bakiyev was deposed in April amid widespread anger over falling living standards and rampant corruption.

The official death toll from recent ethnic violence that tore apart the southern cities of Osh and Jalal-Abad now stands around 900, and 400,000 people had to flee their homes.