Torture by Police, Forced Disappearance & Other Ill Treatment In the early years of the 21st Century, 2000 to
2025 gvnet.com/torture/Kazakhstan.htm
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CAUTION: The following links
have been culled from the web to illuminate the situation in Kazakhstan. Some of these links may lead to websites
that present allegations that are unsubstantiated or even false. No
attempt has been made to validate their authenticity or to verify their content. HOW TO USE THIS WEBPAGE Students If you are looking
for material to use in a term-paper, you are advised to scan the postings on this
page and others to see which aspects of Torture by Authorities are of
particular interest to you. You might
be interested in exploring the moral justification for inflicting pain or
inhumane or degrading treatment or punishment in order to obtain critical
information that may save countless lives, or to elicit a confession for a
criminal act, or to punish someone to teach him a lesson outside of the
courtroom. Perhaps your paper might
focus on some of the methods of torture, like fear, extreme temperatures,
starvation, thirst, sleep deprivation, suffocation, or immersion in freezing
water. On the other hand, you might
choose to write about the people acting in an official capacity who
perpetrate such cruelty. There is a
lot to the subject of Torture by Authorities.
Scan other countries as well as this one. Draw comparisons between activity in
adjacent countries and/or regions.
Meanwhile, check out some of the Term-Paper
resources that are available on-line. ***
ARCHIVES *** HRW Urges
Kazakhstan To Investigate Torture Allegations, End Abuse Of Detainees Radio Free
Europe/Radio Liberty, 1 February 2022 www.rferl.org/a/kazakhstan-torture-abuse-human-rights-watch/31681024.html?ltflags=mailer [accessed 1 Feb 2022] HRW said in a
statement on February 1 that it had received "credible reports" of
dozens of cases in which police "arbitrarily detained peaceful
protesters" and others and subjected some detainees to ill-treatment and
torture, including with electric shocks and beatings with batons. The report added
that the group had documented cases of authorities arbitrarily interfering in
the work of lawyers as they tried to handle cases. 'They Would Hang Me
By The Arms': Hundreds Of Letters From Kazakh Prisons Describe Alleged
Torture Ayan Kalmurat
& Aya Renaud, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
RFE/RL Kazakh Service, 22 July 2021 www.rferl.org/a/kazakhstan-prison-torture-letters/31372148.html?ltflags=mailer [accessed 22 July
2021] Former inmates at
prisons in Kazakhstan are sharing harrowing details of what they describe as
“torture” at the hands of their jailers. “An officer pulled
me out of the cell and began strangling me as others looked on. Then he hit
me repeatedly on the head and in my face,” said one former inmate of a prison
in Almaty, whose name is being withheld out of concern for his safety. “Next, five
officers handcuffed me and dragged me into a specially adapted torture
chamber to drown me in a water container,” he said. “I was tortured there
until I passed out.’. 2020 Country
Reports on Human Rights Practices: Kazakhstan U.S. Dept of State Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and
Labor, 30 March 2021 www.state.gov/reports/2020-country-reports-on-human-rights-practices/kazakhstan/
[accessed 22 July
2021] TORTURE AND OTHER
CRUEL, INHUMAN, OR DEGRADING TREATMENT OR PUNISHMENT On February 3, the Kapshagay district court convicted seven officers of Zarechniy prison of torture. The court sentenced Deputy
Director for Behavioral Correction Arman Shabdenov
and Deputy Director for Operations Jexenov to seven
years in jail, and the others received sentences ranging from five to six
years in jail. On April 1, Yerbolat Askarov, director of
the operations unit of a prison in Shakhtinsk near
Karaganda, was sentenced to two-and-a-half years’ probation for torturing
prisoners in addition to a three-year ban on work in penitentiary
institutions. On January 23, more
than 200 prisoners in Uralsk prison RU-170/3 were severely beaten by National
Guard soldiers brought in by prison administrators to search for contraband. Prisoners stated
that the soldiers beat prisoners, kept them outdoors in frigid temperatures
for three hours with inadequate clothing, destroyed personal items, and
verbally abused them. After the raid prison officials did not let prisoners
visit the infirmary. PRISON AND DETENTION
CENTER CONDITIONS Physical Conditions:
The NPM reported many concerns including poor health and sanitary conditions;
poor medical services, including for prisoners suffering from HIV/AIDS,
tuberculosis, and diabetes; high risk of torture during search,
investigation, and transit to other facilities; lack of feedback from
prosecutors on investigation of torture complaints; lack of communication
with families; discrimination against prisoners in vulnerable groups,
including prisoners with disabilities and prisoners with HIV/AIDS; censorship;
and a lack of secure channels for submission of complaints. ARREST PROCEDURES
AND TREATMENT OF DETAINEES On June 1, three
men died, and two required intensive care as a result of an alleged poisoning
in a Kokshetau detention facility, according to press
accounts. Most of those affected were detained for traffic violations.
Activists criticized authorities for failure to apply alternatives to
incarceration for such minor offenses. Freedom House
Country Report 2020 Edition freedomhouse.org/country/kazakhstan/freedom-world/2020 [accessed 15 May
2020] F3. IS THERE PROTECTION FROM THE ILLEGITIMATE
USE OF PHYSICAL FORCE AND FREEDOM FROM WAR AND INSURGENCIES? Conditions in pretrial
detention facilities and prisons are harsh. Police at times use excessive
force during arrests, and torture is widely employed to obtain confessions,
with numerous allegations of physical abuse and other mistreatment documented
each year. In July 2019, five prison officers working at a prison near Almaty
were arrested and charged with torturing inmates, after graphic footage
revealed their activities. “Suspended Like Fresh Meat”: Torture
Memories from an Ethnic Kazakh Bitter Winter, 17
April 2019 bitterwinter.org/torture-memories-from-an-ethnic-kazakh/ [accessed 13 May
2019] I was taken to the
traffic police brigade because I violated traffic regulations. After arriving
at the traffic police brigade, they said that I had a record of other
violations and that an investigation would be required. Afterwards, they took
me away. They tied me onto an iron stool and kept interrogating me: “We found
out about your criminal record. You’re hiding things and must confess. If you
confess, you will be dealt with leniently. If you resist, you will be dealt
with severely.” After I told them that in fact, I never broke any laws, they
knocked me unconscious with an electric baton. There is also a
torture chamber in the prison. Inside the room, there is a row of iron hooks
used specially for hanging meat in slaughterhouses. They made us stand on
small stools while wearing handcuffs. They placed iron hooks between the
handcuffs, and then moved the stools away, leaving us suspended like fresh
meat. They used wooden sticks to whip our row of “fresh meat,” like whacking
a hanging blanket. At the time, they whipped me to the point that I fainted.
When I woke up, I discovered that I had been taken back to my cell. Several Sentenced
In Kazakh Prison Inmate's Torture Death Radio Free
Europe/Radio Liberty RFE/RL Kazakh Service, Shakhtinsk,
6 August 2018 www.rferl.org/a/several-sentenced-in-kazakh-prison-inmate-s-torture-death/29415371.html [accessed 3
September 2018] Several people have
been sentenced to prison terms of seven to eight years after being convicted
of involvement in the torture and death of an inmate in Kazakhstan. In an August 6
ruling, the Shakhtinsk city court in the central
Qaraghandy region found a deputy warden of Corrective Colony AK-159/6, Bauyrbek Shotaev, and an
officer of the prison's operative unit, Vitaly Zaretsky, guilty of organizing a crime, premeditated
infliction of bodily and psychological harm, and manslaughter. The court found six
inmates of the prison guilty of beating and torturing fellow inmate Valery Chupin with electric shock at Zaretsky's
orders in March 2017. They were sentenced to prison terms between seven and
eight years. Three
Kazakh Police Officers Sentenced For Torture Radio Free
Europe/Radio Liberty RFE/RL Kazakh Service, Aqtobe,
18 March 2015 www.rferl.org/content/three-kazakh-police-officers-sentenced-for-torture/26907341.html [accessed 31 March
2015] Three Kazakh police
officers have been convicted and sentenced to prison for torturing a suspect
in a rare ruling in the Central Asian state. After convicting
the three defendants at a trial on March 17, a court in the northwestern city
of Aqtobe sentenced two of them to three years in
prison apiece for torturing a man suspected of stealing a piece of jewelry. Kazakh authorities
often brush aside such criticism or deny torture accusations, but there have
been some recent cases in which police have been prosecuted on suspicion of
torture. In January 2013, a court
in the northern region of Qostanai set a precedent
for Kazakhs and other Central Asians seeking redress for police torture by
upholding a decision to award compensation to a man who was tortured by the
police in 2007. In November 2013,
two police officers in the northern Aqmola region
were sentenced to three years in jail for torture. In July 2014, a
court in the western city of Atyrau sentenced three
police officers to prison terms of between one and two years for torturing a
suspect. Last month, two
police officers in the northern city of Pavlodar were sentenced to one year
in jail each for torturing a suspect. Kazakhstan:
Justice must prevail for torture victim Rasim Bayramov FIDH - Worldwide
Human Rights Movement, 28 January 2015 www.omct.org/fr/statements/2015/01/d22989/ [accessed 11 August
2015] Back in 2008,
police officers of the city of Rudny in Kostanay region detained Rasim Bayramov following witness statements accusing him of
having stolen some money and three bottles of beer from a local store. Police
held him at the local police station without access to a lawyer and tortured
and ill-treated him to extract a confession for two and a half days. Rasim Bayramov later recounted
that police officers kicked and beat him all over his body, pushed him off a
chair, dragged him along the corridor by his hair, and threatened him with
sexual violence if he did not confess; they deprived him of sleep at night
and gave him nothing to eat or drink for over two days. When he lost
consciousness, police poured water on him and continued torturing him.
Eventually, they forced him into signing a confession. Although Rasim Bayramov and his mother
repeatedly complained about the torture and procedural violations to the
Department of Internal Affairs and the Prosecutor’s Office, no effective
investigation was opened into the allegations. During the trial Rasim Bayramov told the judge
about police torture and retracted his confession, but Rudny
City Court ignored the allegations and sentenced Rasim
to five years’ imprisonment based on evidence including the forced
confession. Human
Rights Watch World Report 2015 - Events of 2014 Human Rights Watch,
29 January 2015 www.hrw.org/world-report/2015/...
or
www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/wr2015_web.pdf [accessed 18 March
2015] KAZAKHSTAN TORTURE - National
Preventative Mechanism Coordination Council monitors began detention visits
in 2014. Some police officers faced charges of torture, but impunity remains
the norm. According to media reports, on several occasions in 2014,
detainees’ relatives publicly raised concerns about mass beatings and
ill-treatment in detention. At its November review of Kazakhstan,the United Nations Committee Against Torture (CAT)
expressed concern about the gap between law and practice and continued
impunity for torture. UN Committee
against Torture’s Concluding Observations on Sweden, Ukraine, Venezuela,
Australia, Burundi, USA, Croatia and Kazakhstan Office of the United
Nations High Commissioner of Human Rights OHCHR, Geneva, 24 November 2014 www.ohchr.org/en/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=15336&LangID=E [accessed 7 December
2014] The UN Committee
against Torture will be holding a news conference to discuss the concluding
observations of its 53rd session ... Among the issues discussed during the
session: KAZAKHSTAN: Torture and
ill-treatment to extract "voluntary confessions" to show crimes
solved; disregard of complaints about torture in judicial proceedings; forced
placement in psychiatric institutions of anti-corruption activists, human
rights defenders; high number of deaths in custody, especially of persons
infected with HIV/AIDs; high incidence of violence among prisoners; use of
internal troops, including masked guards, to maintain security in prison. Committee Against
Torture Considers The Report Of Kazakhstan United Nations
Office at Geneva UNOG, 18 November 2014 Office of the United Nations High Commissioner of
Human Rights OHCHR, 18 November 2014 www.unog.ch/unog/website/news_media.nsf/%28httpNewsByYear_en%29/77D0E83E306333B2C1257D94005E3C4E?OpenDocument [accessed 4 December
2014] www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=15309&LangID=E [accessed 4 December
2014] During the
discussion Committee Experts noted positive developments such as the creation
of a national preventive mechanism and the zero-tolerance policy to crimes of
torture. The use of torture and ill
treatment to obtain confessions went beyond isolated incidents, said Experts,
expressing concern about the gap between legislation and protection from
torture. Less than two per cent of
complaints of torture led to prosecution, noted Experts, also asking about
reports that the National Security Committee used rented apartments or houses
as unofficial places of detention. Torture Victim
Wins Landmark Ruling Joanna Lillis,
Inside the cocoon, Central Asia Today, 23 January 2014 [accessed 25 Jan
2014] A man in northern
Kazakhstan who was the victim of police torture has won a seven-year legal
battle for damages, after a court upheld a ruling that he is entitled to
financial compensation for his injuries. The ruling was
handed down by an appeals court in Kostanay on January 23, local newspaper
Nasha Gazeta reported. Police must now pay some $13,000 in compensation to
44-year-old Aleksandr Gerasimov for injuries they inflicted by beating him up
and suffocating him with a plastic bag in police detention to extract a
confession in 2007. Gerasimov was arrested after going to a police precinct
looking for his stepson, who had been rounded up during a murder
investigation. The Massacre
Everyone Ignored: Up To 70 Striking Oil Workers Killed In Kazakhstan By
US-Supported Dictator Mark Ames, The
Exiled, 19 December 2011 [accessed 6 December
2014] With violence and
government crackdowns making headlines from so many familiar parts of the world,
there’s hardly been a peep in the media about the biggest and ugliest
massacre of all: Last Friday in Kazakhstan, riot police slaughtered up 70
striking oil workers, wounding somewhere between 500 and 800, and arresting
scores. Almost as soon as the massacre went down in the western regional city
of Zhanaozen, the Kazakh authorities cut off access
to twitter and cell phone coverage–effectively cutting the region off from
the rest of the world, relegating the massacre into the small news wire
print. Conclusions and
recommendations of the Committee against Torture U.N. Convention
against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or
Punishment -- Doc. A/56/44, paras.
121-129 (2001) www1.umn.edu/humanrts/cat/observations/kazakhstan2001.html [accessed 2 March
2013] D. Subjects of
concern 128. The Committee
expresses its concern about the human rights situation in general, and in
particular about the following: (a) The absence of a
definition of torture, as provided in article 1 of the Convention, in the
Criminal Code of the State party and the lack of a specific offence of
torture, with the result that torture is not punishable by appropriate
penalties, as required in article 4, paragraph 2, of the Convention; (b) The allegations
of acts of torture and other cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment or
punishment committed by law-enforcement officials of the State party or with
their acquiescence, including beatings and other actions in breach of the
Convention against political opponents of the Government; (c) The insufficient
level of independence and effectiveness of the procuracy, in particular as
the Procurator has the competence to exercise oversight on the appropriateness
of the duration of pre-trial detention; (d) The pattern of
failure of officials, including the procuracy, to provide in every instance
prompt, impartial and full investigations into allegations of torture
reported to the authorities, as well as a failure to prosecute alleged
perpetrators, as required by articles 12 and 13 of the Convention. The
Committee appreciates, but expresses concern, over the Government's
acknowledgement of superficial investigations, destruction of evidence,
intimidation of victims, and forced repudiation of testimony by investigators
and personnel of the Ministry of Internal Affairs; (e) Allegations that
judges refuse to take into account evidence of torture and ill-treatment
provided by the accused with regard to his/her treatment by law enforcement
officials; (f) The insufficient
level of independence of the judiciary, with judges whose tenure lacks
certain necessary safeguards; (g) The insufficient
level of guarantees for the independence of defence counsel; (h) The overcrowding
and lack of access to adequate medical care in prisons and pre-trial
detention centres, and particularly in juvenile detention centres, where
there are reports of incidents of self-mutilation by detainees; and concern
that alternatives to imprisonment are not available to detainees and that the
failure to provide adequate corrective programmes, education and training
create situations leading to heightened recidivist levels; (i) The criterion
for success by investigators is the number of solved crimes, which can lead
to pressure upon detainees to "confess" as a result of actions in
breach of the Convention. (j) The absence of
information in the report regarding torture and ill-treatment affecting women
and girls, particularly in view of the rise in imprisonment rates of females
and allegations of abusive treatment of women in police custody. Central Asia:
Widespread Rights Abuse, Repression Human Rights Watch,
Berlin, 31 January 2013 www.hrw.org/news/2013/01/31/central-asia-widespread-rights-abuse-repression [accessed 3 February
2013] Kazakh and Uzbek authorities
intensified persecution of outspoken government critics in 2012, while none
of the five Central Asian governments seriously tackled longstanding, grave
human rights abuses, such as widespread impunity for torture, Human Rights
Watch said today in its World Report 2013. In December, courts
in Almaty muzzled critical voices by banning Alga! and key independent media
outlets from operating in Kazakhstan in rushed trials, labeling them
“extremist. Kazakhstan’s rights record was also marred in 2012 by credible
and serious allegations of torture, as well as the death of a 50-year old man
in December 2011 after he was severely beaten up by police officers while in
custody. Kyrgyzstan is still
grappling with the aftermath of the June 2010 ethnic clashes in the south
that left hundreds dead and thousands injured. Despite an uneasy calm in
southern Kyrgyzstan, the authorities are still detaining, torturing, and
extorting money from ethnic Uzbeks, without redress, despite Kyrgyzstan’s
adoption in 2012 of a national prevention mechanism against torture. A human
rights defender, Azimjon Askarov, is serving a life sentence, despite a
prosecution marred by torture and serious violations of fair trial standards. Search … AMNESTY
INTERNATIONAL For current
articles:: Search Amnesty
International Website www.amnesty.org/en/search/?q=kazakhstan+torture&ref=&year=&lang=en&adv=1&sort=relevance [accessed 6 January 2019] Scroll
Down ***
EARLIER EDITIONS OF SOME OF THE ABOVE *** Freedom House
Country Report - Political Rights: 6 Civil Liberties: 5 Status: Not Free 2009 Edition www.freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/2009/kazakhstan [accessed 3 February
2013] LONG URL
ç 2009 Country Reports begin on Page 21 [accessed 13 May
2020] The constitution
significantly constrains the independence of the judiciary, making it
subservient to the executive branch. Judges are subject to bribery and
political bias, and corruption is evident throughout the judicial system.
Conditions in pretrial facilities and prisons are harsh. Police at times
abuse detainees during arrest and interrogation, often to obtain confessions,
and arbitrary arrest and detention remain problems. Allegations of coerced
confessions dogged the trial of Yerzhan Utembayev for the killing of opposition leader Altynbek Sarsenbayev in 2006.
Investigations of several former associates of Rakhat
Aliyev after the latter’s exile appear to be
politically motivated. The former deputy director of the National Security
Committee (KNB), Zhomart Mazhrenov,
reportedly hanged himself in a KNB detention facility in July 2008. He had
been charged with abuse of power in a case linked to Aliyev,
and with electronic surveillance of top officials. His apparent suicide,
which took place under suspicious circumstances, meant that he would not face
trial or testify in court. Human Rights
Reports » 2005 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2005/61656.htm [accessed 3 February
2013] 2009-2017.state.gov/j/drl/rls/hrrpt/2005/61656.htm [accessed 4 July
2019] TORTURE
AND OTHER CRUEL, INHUMAN, OR DEGRADING TREATMENT OR PUNISHMENT – The law
prohibits such practices, but police and prison officials at times tortured,
beat, and otherwise abused detainees, often to obtain confessions. In its
Human Rights Commission's annual report, the government acknowledged that
torture and other illegal methods of investigation were still used by some
law enforcement officers. Human rights and international legal observers
noted investigative and procuratorial practices
that overemphasized a defendant's confession of guilt over collecting other
types of evidence in building a criminal case against a defendant. The government
reported authorities filed 47 criminal cases against law enforcement officers
for physical abuse during the year. 11 detainee deaths, including 6 suicides,
were registered during the year at 222 pretrial detention facilities. The
ombudsman's office reported 169 citizen complaints during the first half of
the year, a substantial number of which were allegations of abuse by law
enforcement. On January 10, Mangistau police arrested Nurzhan
Zheksemaliev and Zhenisbek
Rakhmamedov on theft charges. Human rights
observers received reports that the young men were beaten during
interrogation. In July, two
policemen in Petropavlosk received four-year
suspended prison sentences for the September 2004 beating of Viktor Deviatkin. Police came to Deviatkin's
house seeking Deviatkin's son, who was not at home.
When Deviatkin refused to admit the officers, the
police broke in, dragged Deviatkin out of the
house, and took him to the police station, where he was beaten for hours
before he was released. In July the media reported the case of Kazbek Ramazanov, a teacher arrested in 2000 for suspected
murder in the disappearance of his mentally disabled female student. While in
police custody, Ramazanov confessed under torture
to the killing. The missing student was eventually discovered alive, and Ramazanov was exonerated. Ramazanov
filed a complaint against his abusers, who were convicted during the year. No charges had been
brought by year's end and none were expected in the 2003 case of a district
deputy procurator and two other men who brutally beat a 14-year-old girl at a
cafe. According to the victim's parents, the district deputy procurator
exerted pressure on witnesses in the case, discouraging them from testifying. All
material used herein reproduced under the fair use exception of 17 USC § 107
for noncommercial, nonprofit, and educational use. PLEASE RESPECT COPYRIGHTS OF COMPONENT
ARTICLES. Cite this
webpage as: Patt, Prof. Martin, "Torture by Police, Forced Disappearance
& Other Ill Treatment in the early years of the 21st Century- Kazakhstan
", http://gvnet.com/torture/Kazakhstan.htm, [accessed <date>] |
