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Kyrgyzstan|life|March 6, 2017 / 02:55 PM
U.S. State Department says Kyrgyzstan advancing democratic development but condemns police abuse

AKIPRESS.COM - The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) said the presidential election in Kyrgyzstan was competitive, advancing the country’s democratic development, although it was not without procedural shortcomings, reports the U.S. State Department in its 2016 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices released on March 3.

"In 2011 then Prime Minister Almazbek Atambaev won the presidential election with 63 percent of the vote. Independent observers considered that election transparent and competitive, despite some irregularities.

The most significant human rights problems reported included violations of fundamental procedural protections throughout the judicial process; the harassment of local nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), activists, and journalists; and attacks, threats, and systematic police-driven extortion of sexual and ethnic minority groups," the documents says.

The prison conditions, allegations of law enforcement officers’ use of arbitrary arrest and torture and others were also included among the human rights problems in the country.

However, there were no government restrictions on academic freedom. Institutions providing advanced religious education must follow strict reporting policies, but they reported no restrictions on academic freedom, notes the report.

"The government continued to maintain bans on approximately 20 “religiously oriented” groups it considered to be extremist.

On August 4, President Atambaev signed an amendment to the law on combating terrorism and extremism that revokes Kyrgyz citizenship of anyone convicted of terrorist and extremist activities.

The government took steps to streamline labor migration by adopting a program on the regulation of migration processes and collaborating with the governments of Russia, the Republic of Korea, and Kazakhstan to improve the protection of the rights of Kyrgyz labor migrants working abroad."

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