Inmates reportedly stitched their mouths shut in order to prevent prison authorities from force-feeding them (Photo courtesy of Al Jazeera).

Approximately 6,400 of Kyrgyzstan’s nearly 7,600 inmates participated in the 10 day hunger strike. Estimates put the number of inmates who sewed their lips shut between 1,175-1,300.

More than 400 of the striking inmates sewed their mouths shut using wire, staples and whatever other materials they could find after prison guards attempted to break the hunger strike by force-feeding them. The sewing tactic soon spread to other prisons through the use of smuggled cell phones in what the prisoners pronounced to be “an act of solidarity.”

Prisoners claim that the hunger-strike was aimed at securing improved living conditions including better mattresses, basic “liberties” and an end to abuses by prison guards. The hunger strikers also called for the resignation of the head of the national prison service and the director of the Bishkek Detention Center Number 1, where the protest began.

However, Kyrgyz authorities paint a very different picture. Kyrgyz officials accuse the prisoners of striking in coordination with Kyrgyzstan’s notorious crime syndicates, who have historically exercised a significant degree of influence in Kyrgyzstan’s prisons.

Sheishenbek Baizakov, head of the Kyrgyzstan State Penitentiary Service, told reporters that the strike began with calls to re-institute the policy of “common prison cells,” in which prisoners had previously been allowed to roam about the prison largely unrestricted by the guards at all times. Officials claim that the common cells reduced control by prison guards and allowed criminal gangs to more easily conduct smuggling and drug trafficking operations as well as to coerce and intimidate inmates.

Baizakov further told reporters that the prison staff itself had been heavily infiltrated by the syndicates. Baizakov explained that he had fired 80% of Kyrgyzstan’s prison directors for “creat[ing] corrupt schemes and forg[ing] alliances with the criminal underworld.”

Chairman Baizakov was appointed last year with a mandate from President Almazbek Atambayev to crackdown on organized crime in Kyrgyzstan’s penal system. The Administration sees the criminal syndicates’ powerful influence as a threat to Kyrgyzstan’s stability. Under Baizakov’s direction, prisons have begun to institute more stringent rules and several former prison directors now face criminal charges including drug trafficking.

The hunger strike followed on the heels of a prison riot that erupted in Detention Center Number 1 in Bishkek on January 16 leaving 30 prisoners and five guards injured. Additionally, reports indicate that at least one person was killed.

Authorities allege that the riot was sparked by the transfer of a crime boss to another facility as part of Baizakov’s crackdown on organized crime in the prison system. Special riot police raided the prison and used force to put down the riot.

The center’s director Mars Zhuzubekov told the press that during the raid authorities confiscated contraband items such as plasma televisions and refrigerators. Zhuzubekov did not mince his words when he laid out his vision of how a prison should be run; “This is not a hotel, this is not a holiday resort, they should serve their time.”

As the protest ended, Chairman Baizakov echoed Zhuzubekov’s sentiments stating that inmates would not be allowed to continue “to make fools of the guards.” Baizakov pronounced; “let them all sew their mouths shut.”

Inmates’ parents, who have been picketing the Kyrgyz Parliament since the January 16 riot, have called for Chairman Baizakov’s resignation.

According to deputy head of Kyrgyzstan’s prison services Kubanychbek Kenenbayey, the prisoners finally called off their protests on January 28. Kenenbayey informed the press that inmates at a women’s prison in Stepnoe village were the last to agree to break their fast. Tursunbek Akun, Kyrgyzstan’s human rights ombudsman, explained that the prisoners had ceased their protest after “being convinced that there would be no more excesses on the part of their guards.”

Prison spokeswoman Eleonora Sharshenaliayeva informed the press that as the protest drew to a close more than 200 prisoners appealed to medical services for help in removing stitches from their mouths.

In the aftermath of the protests, Kyrgyzstan’s authorities have continued to implement plans to tighten control over the country’s prison system. Proposed measures include the installation of new video surveillance systems and cell-phone jamming technology in Kyrgyzstan’s prisons and penal colonies. Chairman Baizakov announced that it would likely take the authorities 3 months to install the new systems, which have been estimated to cost 22 million soms (approximately $USD 470,000).

Current state penitentiary service policy allows inmates to make 8 phone calls per year using prison phone services. Blocking the use of cell phones in prison facilities is expected to reduce inmates’ ability to coordinate with outside criminal contacts or prisoners in other facilities.

Regardless of whether or not the protests were engineered by the crime syndicates, the situation has once again highlighted conditions in Kyrgyzstan’s penal system.

In response to the protests, Matteo Mecacci, the chair of the human rights committee for the parliamentary assembly of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, called for conditions to be eased in Kyrgyzstan’s detention facilities.

Kyrgyzstan’s prisons have long been notoriously overcrowded and prone to pestilence. There are currently 7,600 inmates incarcerated in Kyrgyzstan’s 11 penal colonies and 6 detention centers. An additional 7,000 people who have been convicted of  lesser crimes are required to check in daily with the police and are confined to their home regions.

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