Geneva: The UN human rights chief said
today that she had information that security forces in
Kyrgyzstan used torture and arbitrary detention during June`s
deadly inter-ethnic clashes.
Navi Pillay, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights,
said such action threatened the "fragile peace and
re-establishment of the rule of law" in the region, where
clashes between the Kyrgyz majority and the Uzbek minority
left some 294 people dead.
"My staff in Kyrgyzstan have received information
suggesting that local authorities are routinely turning a
blind eye to illegal arrests, torture and ill-treatment of
detainees leading to forced confessions," said Pillay in a
statement.
"Large numbers of people -- most of them young men, and
virtually all of them Uzbek -- have been arbitrarily detained
in ways that not only demonstrate flagrant ethnic bias, but
also break many of the fundamental tenets of both Kyrgyz and
international law."
Pillay said her sources indicated that more than 1,000
people had been detained in the southern Kyrgyzstan cities of
Osh and Jalalabad since the violence.
There were reports of "sustained, or repeated beatings"
of detainees. Those held were also asked to confess to crimes
that they claim not to have committed, she said.
PTI
