Radio Free Europe, RFE/RL's Kyrgyz Service, January 29, 2014
A gay-rights demonstration in Kyrgyzstan |
A new
report from Human Rights Watch (HRW) concludes that police in Kyrgyzstan have
extorted, threatened, arbitrarily detained, beaten, and sexually abused gay and
bisexual men.
The 65-page
report is based on interviews with 40 gay and bisexual men in four regions of
Kyrgyzstan.
It includes
cases of severe physical violence against gay and bisexual men, including
punching, kicking, and beating with gun butts, batons, empty beer bottles, or
other objects.
Several gay
men also reported sexual violence by police officers, including rape, group
rape, and attempts to insert a stick, a hammer, or an electric shock device
into their rectums, as well as gratuitous touching during a search or being
forced to undress in front of police.
Anna Kirey,
a lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) rights researcher at HRW, said
that "gay and bisexual men in Kyrgyzstan already live in fear due to
widespread homophobic attitudes, and the police are making a nightmarish situation
even worse."
"The
state has to publicly accept that it is taking place and must condemn on the
highest level those kinds of crimes," she told RFE/RL's Kyrgyz Service.
HRW is
asking the Kyrgyz government to thoroughly investigate the reports.
It also
wants Kyrgyzstan to establish a confidential complaint mechanism.
HRW said
only two of the 40 men interviewed had filed complaints. Neither case led to
anyone being held accountable.
However,
Kyrgyz Interior Ministry spokesman Jorobai Abdraimov cast doubt on the accuracy
of the HRW report.
"We do
not know how much of the report by the international rights organization is
true and how much is not," Abdraimov said. "If they really have facts
saying that [homosexuals] had been beaten or tortured, then let them come to us
and show us those facts. We will launch internal investigations into such
facts. Or let other state bodies lead the investigations. Those kinds of
complaints are thoroughly investigated."
Society in
Kyrgyzstan, as in many other former Soviet republics where same-sex relations
were decriminalized in the 1990s, remains generally hostile toward
homosexuality.
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