Opposition parties create a prisoners' rights committee

The "Ak Zhol" party, the Communist party of Kazakhstan, and the Democratic Choice of Kazakhstan have declared an intention to create a committee for protection of prisoners' rights. Asylbek Kozhakhmetov, chairman of the DCK political council, has stated this at a press conference today, July 22, in Almaty.

Earlier it was reported that these parties had signed a memo on unification of efforts, mutual support, and co-ordination of efforts in the period of the parliament pre-election campaign. However, A. Kozhakhmetov has observed, the law enforcement and penitentiary system issue has not become a part of any political programme, including the one of this bloc.

At the same time this is one of the most painful areas in the Kazakhstani society. According to the statistic data, published by the Statistics Agency of RK, 51.5 thousand people were detained in penitentiary system institutions as of 2 December, 2003, which makes Kazakhstan the 4th country in the world on the number of detainees.

According to Bulat Abilov, co-chairman of "Ak Zhol" party, tha main reason for such a big number of prisoners is an unreceptiveness of the Kazakhstani penitentiary system to reforms. In his view, it maintains its punishing character and, despite a certain liberalisation of the penitentiary system, its basics remain aiming at a suppression of a human being.

Currently the idea of creating a prisoners' rights committee has been supported by such international organisations as the International Bureau for Human Rights and the Human Rights Watch. It is suggested that the committee will study the condition of the country's penitentiary system, collect information on violations of human rights in the penitentiary executive system institutions, and make propositions on its reform.