Strong reaction to Supreme Court ruling on opposition leader

Activists and opposition figures have strongly criticised a Supreme Court decision on Friday upholding the earlier conviction of a former vice-president and opposition leader, Feliks Kulov, currently serving a 10-year sentence on charges of abuse of office and financial misconduct. "This is a frustration not just among those in the human rights community, but also among those in the opposition and the Kyrgyz public alike," Natalia Ablova, the director of the Kyrgyz Bureau of Human Rights, told IRIN from the capital, Bishkek, noting, nonetheless, that the court's ruling had not come as a surprise. Kulov is widely regarded as the most prominent political rival of President Askar Akayev, who has led Kyrgyzstan since it gained independence following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. "We never hoped that Mr Akayev would let Mr Kulov go, but we did have hopes that the highest court of this country would be impartial. [However,] those hopes were fruitless," she said. Ablova, a former journalist, blamed the situation on the judiciary's lack of independence and its overriding dependency on the country's executive powers. She described the court's decision as a manifestation of fear on the part of the ruling elite. "They are afraid of seeing Mr Kulov free as he would then be active in the forthcoming elections," she said. Shaken Omuralieva, a member of the political council of Kulov's Ar-Namys (Dignity) party, concurred, telling IRIN that the court's decision had violated national and international law, as well as the country's constitution. "It is illegal. Only a newborn child wouldn't know that the case of Feliks Kulov is a political one," she asserted. "Everyone knows this - including the people who ordered and implemented the decision." Ablova called for international pressure to continue, noting that there had been considerable violations of the rules governing the judiciary, committed in order to prevent Kulov from receiving a fair trial. "These are enough to acquit him even if they found him guilty," she said. "The state failed to act in accordance to the law. This is enough to acquit anybody." Criticism of the ruling against Kulov was not expressed only by local rights groups. The international watchdog, Human Rights Watch (HRW), said in a statement issued in New York on Wednesday that Kulov's continued imprisonment put the fairness of future elections in Kyrgyzstan in doubt. The court's decision in the Kulov case has come at a sensitive time, with Akayev vowing not to run for office again in the next elections, scheduled for 2005. Many observers are now watching how the government will treat its political opponents as an indication of its commitment to a fair election process. "Feliks Kulov is a political prisoner and should be released," Elizabeth Andersen, the executive director of the HRW's Europe and Central Asia division, said. "Kulov's continuing imprisonment is not a promising sign for future elections." HRW stated that Kyrgyz officials had worked to exclude Kulov from the ballot in the October 2000 presidential elections. The National Security Service (SNB, formerly KGB) had arrested the leader of the Ar-Namys party on 29 March 2000, on (according to HRW) trumped-up charges of abuse of office committed during his tenure as head of the SNB. Following his acquittal by a military tribunal in August 2000, the prosecutor's office appealed and, one month later - just after Kulov announced his intentions to run in the presidential elections against Akayev - he was arrested again. A court sentenced him to seven years of imprisonment in January 2001; new charges of embezzlement were added in July, and the sentence was subsequently increased to 10 years. Kulov is the country's highest-profile political prisoner. In addition to serving as SNB chief and as the country's vice-president, he was also governor of the northern industrial province of Chuy and mayor of Bishkek. Prior to his arrest in 2000, he lost his bid for a seat in parliament due in part to alleged interference by local authorities. Asked what this latest development meant in a country once viewed as an island of democracy in a region dominated by authoritarian leaders, Edil Baysalov, the president of the Coalition for Democracy and Civil Society, a non-partisan NGO, told IRIN that the verdict went beyond pure politics. "Although we don't support the Ar-Namys party, there can be no talk about democratisation and its path so long as Kulov is in prison," he said.