Kyrgyz forces arrest and torture ethnic Uzbeks-UN

Source: Reuters

Kyrgyz forces arrest and torture ethnic Uzbeks-UN
Source: Reuters - AlertNet
Date: 20 Jul 2010

By Stephanie Nebehay

GENEVA, July 20 (Reuters) - Security forces have rounded up ethnic Uzbeks in southern Kyrgyzstan and tortured some, pulling out their fingernails and burning them with cigarettes, the United Nations said on Tuesday.

U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay, citing a range of sources in the Central Asian state, said the arrests and mistreatment violated domestic and international laws.

The violations also jeopardised a fragile peace six weeks after clashes between ethnic Kyrgyz and Uzbeks in which at least 300 people were killed and thousands of homes burned down in the main southern cities of Osh and Jalalabad.

"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," Pillay said in a statement. "We have reports of sustained, or repeated, beatings."

The U.N. human rights office was in close touch with authorities in Osh, who say they have received very few complaints of torture and mistreatment, thus making it hard for them to take action, Pillay's spokesman Rupert Colville said. "But we believe that's precisely because the victims and their families are afraid of reprisals," he told reporters.







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