THE UNITED Nations’ human rights chief says security forces are torturing, beating and illegally detaining ethnic Uzbeks in southern Kyrgyzstan, where hundreds of people were killed and hundreds of thousands displaced in ethnic riots last month.
“My staff in Kyrgyzstan have received information suggesting that local authorities are routinely turning a blind eye to illegal arrests, torture and ill-treatment of detainees leading to forced confessions,” said Navi Pillay, the UN commissioner for human rights.
“Large numbers of people, most of them young men, and virtually all of them Uzbek, have been arbitrarily detained in ways that not only demonstrate flagrant ethnic bias, but also break many of the fundamental tenets of both Kyrgyz and international law.”
Ms Pillay spoke of “reports of sustained, or repeated, beatings” and of security forces demanding money to release prisoners.
“Many victims and their families are believed not to be reporting illegal acts by the authorities, and lawyers and human rights defenders who have tried to seek justice have been directly threatened, and in some cases detained themselves,” she said.
At least 300 people were killed in clashes between ethnic Kyrgyz and Uzbeks in and around the southern Kyrgyz cities of Osh and Jalalabad in early June.
President Roza Otunbayeva said she believed some 2,000 people may have died in the violence, in which Uzbek districts were razed to the ground, and which prompted claims from Uzbeks that Kyrgyz police and soldiers had joined Kyrgyz mobs in attacking their homes and businesses.
About 400,000 people, almost all Uzbeks, fled their homes during the fighting, which erupted two months after former president Kurmanbek Bakiyev was ousted in an uprising. His stronghold was southern Kyrgyzstan, and Ms Otunbayeva has blamed him and his allies for sparking the violence.
Countries including the US, France and Germany have also called for an international investigation into the riots.
