On 22 October 2010, at approximately 11pm, the Head of the House Committee of Osh district, Mr Tolon Amataliev, reportedly attacked human rights defender Mr Umaraly Mamazhanov (ethnic Uzbek) at a public reception of the Advocacy Centre for Human Rights.

Further Information

The public reception was organised by the Advocacy Centre for Human Rights in collaboration with an organisation called Man and the order to provide legal assistance to victims of the June events in southern Kyrgyzstan. According to staff at the public reception, they were addressed primarily by persons of Uzbek ethnicity.

Mr Amataliev, together with one man and one woman, burst into the waiting room and began beating Umaraly Mamazhanov, he was holding bullets and threatened to leave them in the office and call the National Security Department. The beating took place in the presence of about 20 witnesses, mostly of Uzbek origin, who did not defend Mr Mamazhanov out of fear for their own lives. Mr Amataliev had previously threatened the Advocacy Centre for Human Rights, stating that he would set fire to their office and have all the staff members beaten up.

Umaraly Mamazhanov filed a complaint with the police department and prosecutor's office in Osh outlining details of the beating.

Attacks on human rights defenders especially those of ethnic Uzbek origin or human rights lawyers who represent Uzbek convicts in courts, have became an issue of concern in southern Kyrgyzstan. Front Line previously issued an urgent appeal detailing the recent attacks on human rights lawyers. Kyrgyz officials fail to recognise the growing problem. Moreover, they tend to deny the accuracy of the information provided by Kyrgyz human rights organisations.

On 20 October 2010 a meeting took place between the staff of human rights organisation Spravedlivost (Justice) and various representatives of the Kyrgyz Government, police, lawyers and court officials. The meeting was set up at the request of the President, Rosa Otunbayeva. The purpose of the meeting was to address safety concerns for human rights defenders and lawyers on the ground in the wake of increasing levels of violence surrounding the legal proceedings related to the outbreak of violence in June 2010. NGO Spravedlivost was represented by its director, Valentina Gritsenko, Abdumalik Sharipov (programme coordinator), and Mahamadzhan Abduzhaparov, (lawyer). The Kyrgyz Government was represented by the Deputy Prime Minister Azimbek Beknazarov, as well as various lawyers, representatives of the court and members of the police. The meeting was also attended by the Deputy Chairman of the Supreme Court, the Deputy Attorney General of southern Kyrgyzstan, and the Deputy Head of the Legal Department of the president.

Kyrgyz officials stated that police and law enforcement agencies were working hard to protect lawyers, by assigning four police officers to each lawyer. They stressed however that it was necessary to understand the emotional state of the relatives of those killed during the violence in June. The Ombudsman for the Jalal-Abad region, Alima Amanova, suggested that claims that human rights lawyers were at risk by attending court and representing those accused of participating in the violence in June were largely unfounded and highly exaggerated, stating that in fact no one had been beaten or attacked outside or within the court house.

Later, in a separate statement, Ombudsman Alima Amanova accused human rights defenders of blackening the country's name. She stated that “some human rights defenders, just arrived from Geneva, [and] they immediately [hurried] to provide their stakeholders with the wrong information”. Ms Amanova also announced that she asked National Security Department and other structures to monitor the activities of NGOs and human rights defenders and not to allow them to go abroad.