Capital punishment in Kyrgyzstan was abolished on June 25, 2007, when President Kurmanbek Bakiyev signed the appropriate law. Liberalization of penal legislation seems to be finally under way but some human rights activists who have longed for it remain skeptical while others say that lifers' position became even worse.

Article 1 of the law states that "The words "capital punishment" in the Criminal Code of the Republic of Kyrgyzstan are to be replaced with "imprisonment for life".

"Abolition of capital punishment actually stiffened penal legislation," human rights activist Abdunazar Mamatislamov said meaning that the conditions set up for those sentenced to the sole penalty conform with neither sanitary requirements nor elementary human norms.

In the meantime, the minimum standards prisoners are supposed to be able to count on are specified in the international documents Kyrgyzstan ratified. Not even ordinary prisons and colonies answer these requirements, not to mention the facilities for imprisonment for life.

Number of the articles of the Criminal Code dispensing the sole penalty increased - another nuance that makes observers and human rights activist wonder about the so called liberalization. Capital punishment could be applied under three articles before the reform but these days the courts acting "in the name of the Kyrgyz Republic" are permitted to apply it for six different types of crime.

Lifer is permitted to apply for a post-conviction review only after 30 years (!) behind the bars. Provided his or her behavior was impeccable. Needless to say, there are no guarantees of a favorable outcome.

We are not here to elaborate on how professional, integral, and objective investigation is, how confessions are obtained, or how valid evidence is. Volumes have been written - and will be undoubtedly written yet - on tortures at the hands of the police, on prejudiced judges and prosecutors, on fabricated cases. Let us instead try to gauge the effect of abolition of capital punishment on Kyrgyzstan. Let us try to decide if Kyrgyzstan is going to become a more civilized country.

Eternal providers

Promoting abolition of capital punishment, Justice Minister Marat Kaiypov made a reference to ancient Kyrgyz ways and traditions. According to Kaiypov, Kyrgyzes have never known blood feuds and practiced blood-wite instead. Murderer paid victim's kin a recompense and supported this family ever after. Kaiypov's reasoning went as follows: executing the criminal, the state deprives at least two families (victim's and criminal's own) of a provider. This is an interesting point of view, to say the least.

On the other hand, the minister's arguments may certainly be countered. By not executing the criminal, the state forces his maintenance on the victim's family. The latter find themselves without someone dear to them but - even worse - with the knowledge that the taxes they pay to the state are partially spent on the murderer who has to be sheltered, fed, clothed, and so on. It is the blood-wite in reverse. It is not criminal who is paying a recompense, it is the other way round.

As a matter of fact, the very assumption that execution leaves the convict's family without provider is itself a laugh. It is common knowledge that families themselves provide for those sentenced to the sole penalty. Regular (monthly) food parcels and visits - all of that takes time and a great deal of money. In other words, convict's family is another provider. Sentencing a person to life imprisonment, the state puts a financial burden on his own and his victim's families.

A few more words on finances. Per diem allowance costs the state budget just over 15 soms or about $0.4, according to the figures provided by the Main Directorate of Penitentiary Facilities.

The wife and the mother of one Sergei Zavalayev sentenced to capital punishment told Ferghana.Ru that food parcels to Sergei every month cost at least 1,500 soms or $40. Add here the cost of medicines, garments, transport fees, etc. All in all, the family spends at least 50 soms ($1.3) on its sentenced "provider" every day - triple the sum spent by the "humane" state.

More than 170 convicts were waiting for execution by the day Bakiyev signed the law. The human rights community claims that 154 of them remain in contact with families. Multiply families' expenses by the years their alleged "providers" will last behind the bars and compare it with what the state is paying...

Citizens Against Corruption Human Rights Center maintains that convicts sentenced to the sole penalty are victims of discrimination. They are fed the least and the worst of all prisoners, and no indulgences with regard to food parcels are applied to them.

Twice murderers

The first moratorium on executions was declared in Kyrgyzstan in 1998. Over 70 convicts have died since - some taking their own lives but most succumbing to TB (the plague of all prisons and colonies). New and new people are sentenced to the sole penalty every year - over 20 drew life sentence in 2007. There is absolutely no saying how many of them will succumb to sickness and die in years to come.

Debts of the Main Directorate of Penitentiary Facilities to pharmaceutical companies amount to approximately 60 million soms. Underfunding and archaic equipment are the eternal banes of all penitentiary facilities - there are no photofluorographic units or even face masks. Absolutely everyone from inmates to wardens runs the risk of catching TB.

Human rights activists claim to know of the episodes when wardens themselves are down with TB. When the matter concerns nurses, controllers, and so on employed by the Main Directorate of Penitentiary Facilities, they are not even entitled to any recompense. Medical treatment with the state covering the costs is, of course, out of the question.

People sentenced to the sole penalty are entitled to daily walks. In real life, however, 40 minutes a day in front of their cells is all they get. The risk of catching TB increases enormously. Slowly dying of TB, lifers therefore can easily take with them the innocent - nurses, wardens, and other convicts. Even without being aware of it, these people become lifers' last victims. Lifers become unwitting murderers all over again.

Neither they nor the state shoulder any responsibility for it.

Twice convicts

The law replacing capital punishment with imprisonment for life gives the Supreme Court of the Kyrgyz Republic six months to review all criminal cases of would-be lifers. This provision has been hotly debated over too. Some experts believe that the law stands for an automatic amendment of the verdict (death sentence to imprisonment for life). Others believe that courts will consider the cases of people on the death row from a different standpoint and that some of them may end up with a definite term of imprisonment. Convicts sentenced by the Supreme Court to life imprisonment in the meantime will be able to apply for a review after 30 years behind the bars.

This correspondent met with families of some convicts. All of them are waiting for the review, all are hopeful, and all understand that six months is not enough to consider all cases the way they should be considered - properly and with consideration. "Materials in some criminal cases take nearly 20 volumes at least 300 pages each. At least 170 criminal cases are to be reviewed. What can you expect other than going through the motions?" lifer's sister said.

Lifers are facing a dilemma - life in inhuman conditions with the phantom hope of a review in 30 years or a firing squad and no more suffering. "I will take my life unless they slap me with a definite term of imprisonment," Zavalayev told his wife once.

It is particularly bad on mothers who do not know what is preferable - to have the son live knowing what life in Kyrgyz prisons is or have him executed. "I know one thing only - that I won't last these 30 years," one of them told Ferghana.Ru.

Some convicts have wives and children who may be viewed as victims too. It is impossible to imagine what it must be like - knowing that the husband will never be free again and that the children will have to be raised without the father. Even if the case is reviewed after 30 years, it is an old man who will go out of prison.

One convict's wife told this correspondent that if her man were sentenced for life, she'd be able to manage two years longer but no more. "I have a little son who needs a father," she said. "I'm a young woman with a whole life before me yet." She was not alone, by all means. Some others said they were prepared to remain faithful to the imprisoned husband, to bring him food parcels once a month, and raise children on their own. These were words. Their eyes told a different story. These women were trying to convince themselves and allay their own fears of the future.

In other words, the state that sentences a man to life imprisonment automatically extends the sentence to his wife and children.

Mercy above justice?

The new law is plain: imprisonment for life instead of capital punishment.

The human rights community is convinced that more than that is needed. Abolition of capital punishment is a step in the correct direction, that much is undeniable. Unfortunately, imprisonment for life is not a solution for a state that is not exactly rolling in dough and cannot provide even minimum required terms of imprisonment. It is true humanism of society that counts, not what the state itself says concerning its faithfulness to democratic values. "Terms of imprisonment should be definite," human rights activist Toleikan Ismailova said. Kaiypov seems to be in agreement. "A criminal needs the light at the end of the tunnel. He needs his hope," the minister was quoted as saying once.

Lira Ismailova, a lawyer with Citizens Against Corruption, said that when it abolished capital punishment, the Kyrgyz state ceased being an executioner and needed to make punishment more humane now. "No need to invent anything new," she said. "Take a look at how they do things in other countries where life imprisonment is also practiced but reviews are organized once every five years... Moreover, Kyrgyzstan is in the period of transit democracy now and its national security structures and Prosecutor General's Office have not even begun internal reforms."

Good intentions, these ones are. In the meantime, proper conditions should be set up behind the bars or even the convicts lucky to be released one fine day will find themselves unwelcome. The Kyrgyz state should take measures right now or lifers themselves will beg to be executed to end it all.

Author: journalist Ulugbek Babakulov sits on Ferghana.Ru Expert Council