Press release of the Kyrgyz Committee for Human Rights

By invitation of several international organizations the chairman of KCHR Dyryldaev R.O in the period of February 11-February 20 of 2004 has visited USA. During the visit Mr. Dyryldaev met with people in Congress and State Department of USA as well as in International organizations located in USA. During these meetings he has discussed human rights situations as well as variants of development of situation due to coming presidential and parliamentary elections, which is supposed to be held in the beginning or in the end of 2005 and other topics.  The questions asked from Dyryldaev during the meeting were of following character: Will the president keep his promise that he will not run for next presidential elections in 2005, will he not intervene in elections process, will anybody from his family run for the presidency, where did the aid of more than 4 billion US$ from USA to Kyrgyzstan (2 billion financial aid, more than 2 billion humanitarian aid) and about corruption size of Akayev’s family. Why did Kyrgyzstan with few population turned out to be poorest country and the authorities under Akayev most corrupted?

In response Dyryldaev said that most corrupted person is standing before them, since he was accused of corruption in stealing around 500 thousand US$ in mass media including the newspaper of Akayev’s family “Vecherniy Bishkek”, the newspaper is issued in 3 languages (English, Russian and Kyrgyz). Under all these the newspaper does not mention anything about 4 billions that are stolen by Akayev’s regime including his family.

Akayev started “robbing” from the very beginning of his presidency from contraband export of Kyrgyz gold. The daughter of Akayev Saadat works in Vienna in a firm where she trades with Kyrgyz gold. However the mass media of Kyrgyzstan is silent about these extends of corruption. This is the level of free speech in mass media of KR.

The next topic that Dyrydaev discussed is:

Escape from punishment of those who were guilty in Aksy tragedy on 17-18 March of 2002. At the same time the direct causers of the tragedy received high state positions showing the direct involvement of Akayev.

The leader of opposition Kulov F. Sh. continues to be in prison.

Based on this background of responsibility the leave of Akayev is very doubtful, he is looking for version of keeping presidency in his hands.

With colleagues human rights defenders Dyryldaev discussed cooperation and effort in human rights defense in Central Asian region.

Dyryldaev in Washington D.C. met with part of exiled leadership of party “Ar-Namys” and with new association “Kyrgyz citizens abroad” which was registered not long ago in the USA. The new association informed Dyryldaev about its activities and plans. As they said to Dyryldaev, one of the short-term plans of the association is to perpetuate the memory of victims of Aksy tragedy in Arlington cemetery.  

The members of the association “Kyrgyzstan citizens abroad” are former businessmen of Kyrgyzstan emigrated to abroad because they did not want to do constant requirements of Akayev regime and give bribes to the family of Akayev or victims of arbitrariness connected with refusing to bribe and victims of suspicion in connection with opposition.

Press service of KCHR headed by Ramazan Dyryldaev