27 Jul 2020 12:35

Rights activist Askarov dies in Kyrgyz prison

BISHKEK. July 27 (Interfax) - Human rights campaigner Azimzhan Askarov, who was earlier given a life sentence, has died in a Kyrgyz prison, his lawyer Valerian Vakhitov told Interfax on Saturday.

"He was taken away for a medical examination the day before. He died in the hospital of Correctional Facility No. 47 overnight," Vakhitov said.

The cause of Askarov's death still remains unknown, the lawyer said.

"He had been seriously ill for a long time. He had all symptoms of community-acquired pneumonia. When I saw him last, he coughed and suffered from shortness of breath," Vakhitov said.

On May 13, the Kyrgyz Supreme Court Board upheld the life sentence of human rights activist Azimzhan Askarov, who was convicted in September 2010 of instigating interethnic hatred and of complicity in the killing of police officer during clashes in southern Kyrgyzstan.

Clashes erupted between ethnic Kyrgyz and ethnic Uzbek people in Osh and Jalal-Abad in southern Kyrgyzstan between June 10 and June 15, 2010. According to official reports, more than 400 people died, and about 2,000 people were injured in those events.

Askarov, an Uzbek community activist in Jalal-Abad, was given a life sentence later that year for inciting interethnic discord, organizing mass unrest, and acting as an accomplice to the murder of an officer of law enforcement agencies.

International and local human rights organizations said his case was fabricated and that he was tortured, declaring him "a prisoner of conscience."

Askarov won the human rights defender award from the U.S. Department of State in summer 2015, causing an extremely negative reaction from Kyrgyzstan, subsequently leading to the renunciation of the 1993 Kyrgyz-U.S. intergovernmental agreement at Bishkek's initiative.