Most of the complaints were about torture or ill-treatment the victims suffered several weeks or months before
the monitoring. So, of course, signs of torture and wounds had healed up by the time the monitoring started.
Yet, the observers including a forensic medical expert collected some medical data under the complaints
received and conveyed them to lawyers involved as defence attorneys under the project.
Both the international law and the domestic law clearly stipulate that cruel treatment may not only imply
physical pain but also moral sufferings that a person may have if he has no or restricted access to toilet, drinking
water or no possibility to sleep, etc.
It was already mentioned in the Report that TDF detainees are allowed to be outside to breath fresh air just for
5-10 minutes a day and that detainees held in TDFs of Bishkek city internal affairs department and Balykchy
IAB have no access to fresh air. Legally not all of these cases can be defined as torture, but each of them
demonstrates inhuman treatment and violation of the rights of prisoners, which must entail brining of relevant
officials to justice.
In August 2011, a woman defendant held in a TDF said she had diabetes, but a TDF officer-on-duty did not give
her syringes in a timely manner and sometimes he refused to give her insulin syringes kept in a control room.
Her health deteriorated in the TDF due to irregular receipt of insulin. 179
The monitoring team conveyed the defendant’s complaints to the IAB head who promised to ensure that she is
provided with syringes in a timely manner. However, during the following scheduled monitoring of this TDF
the observers received the same complaints from the woman.
Also, in the course of the monitoring, the observers received complaints of persons with TB about not being
treated and being subjected to beatings by TDF members of staff.
Example: A detainee told the observers: “On September 14, 2011, when I went to satisfy my needs
of nature, guard named А. stripped the T-shirt off me, hit me with his hand on my chest, and
tried to hit me with his foot, but I caught it and pushed it out of the way. He ran to the control
room and called all the members of staff who were there. Two more persons came along and
started beating me with a baton and their feet all over my body. This was taking place in the
exercise yard in front of the first cell. Then officers of the criminal investigation department
took me to their room on the 2nd floor where the continued beating me. They stopped beating
me after I fainted. They brought me back to the TDF, but in a little while they took me out
to the exercise yard again and bet me on my legs and feet. They stepped on my feet with
their boots.” It is written in this detainee’s medical history that he had an active form of
pulmonary tuberculosis, but he has not received any treatment.180
Also, it must be stressed that in the Bishkek city IAD TDF, several detainees participating in the methadone
treatment program were not able to undergo methadone medication therapy, because of which they suffer
physically. Non-giving of methadone to detainees participating in the methadone program is one of types of
cruel treatment.
Based on the information received in the course of the monitoring it can be concluded that persons involved in
criminal proceedings are at risk of being subjected to torture and ill-treatment when arrested and held in IABs,
especially during investigative works.
This is explained by the aggregate of the following serious violations:
• Violation of the procedure of arresting and detaining persons suspected of committing crimes
As per Art. 95 of the KR Code of Criminal Procedure, a record of arrest of a person suspected of a crime shall
be drawn up no later than three hours after the actual delivery of the detained. The investigator shall inform the
179
Monitoring Report No. 5/4-8-10-11/З/1.1.
Monitoring Report No. 8/3/О/1.0.
180
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