Troublemakers must be punished - Kyrgyz president
BISHKEK. June 5 (Interfax) - Kyrgyz President Almazbek Atambayev has ordered to identify and punish the organizers of disturbances and blocking of the Bishkek-Osh motorway, a source at the presidential press service told Interfax on Wednesday.
"The chief of state made a point of punishing instigators of the disturbances and the blocking of the road," he said.
Atambayev told heads of Kyrgyz law enforcement authorities that a state of emergency was possible in the Suzak district of the Jalal-Abad region "unless other ways were found to stop the illegal actions of the protesters, which infringed on the rights of many citizens of Kyrgyzstan."
The Bishkek-Osh road, which connects northern and southern Kyrgyzstan, has reopened for traffic after three days of being blocked..
"People's governor" Meder Usenov released from a detention center on the guarantee of Jalal-Abad city residents came to the village Barpy in the Suzak district of the Jalal-Abad region on Wednesday morning.
He urged the protesters to reopen the road. "That is fair: people and drivers are tired and this is not their fault," he said.
Usenov is the Ata Zhurt party coordinator for the Jalal-Abad region. He was proclaimed the regional "people's governor" after party supporters had seized the regional administration building on May 31.
Ata Zhurt supporters demand the acquittal and release of their leaders, deputies Kamchibek Tashiyev, Sadyr Zhaparov and Talant Mamytov, convicted of a coup attempt on March 28, 2013.