Presidential elections in Kyrgyzstan on October 30 will mark the first time in post-Soviet Central Asia’s history that there is a peaceful and willing handover of power from one leader to another.
Once the election is over with, civil society activists hope to restart a program that aims to transform the way police officers approach their work. The initiative – if it can be expanded – could potentially boost Kyrgyzstan’s efforts to shed its Soviet legacy.
The program, so far limited to the Kyrgyz capital Bishkek, is dubbed “Bezopasnaya Doroga,” or Safe Road. It strives to get law-enforcement officers to engage in neighborhood policing: instead of serving a shift at one precinct in the capital, law enforcement officers are given 10 liters of gas and sent out to drive around the city, ticket traffic violators, and respond to emergencies. Cops are expected to interact as “social partners” with citizens, just as much as they are expected to fulfill the traditional duties of law-enforcement officers on patrol.
Kyrgyzstan is modeling its police reform effort on programs developed in Georgia. Kyrgyz Deputy Prime Minister Shamil Atahanov visited Georgia in March and was so impressed by its policing reform program that he took steps to replicate it in Kyrgyzstan. The government allocated 10 million soms ($220,000) for this purpose and hopes to see progress in the coming months. The reform effort’s main goal is to boost public trust in the police by reducing corruption, unwarranted arrests, and the use of torture. The pilot project, which got started in August, will help officials prioritize areas for improvement. The project was suspended in October for the presidential election campaign.
On a Saturday night before the project’s suspension, I had a chance to go to shadow a pair of police officers – Bakyt and Arsen – who were among the 60 participants in the pilot program.
“Act strictly by the rule of law; be polite and correct with the citizens,” recited Arsen before he headed out onto the streets for an eight-hour night shift.
Police in Kyrgyzstan have a generally notorious reputation for indulging in petty graft, human rights violations, and forcing confessions. Human rights activist Aziza Abdirasulova has uncovered 20 cases of torture that led to deaths over the past three years. Not all police misconduct is reported, she alleges, and various forms of torture and coercion are commonly used by cops to extract evidence and confessions.
An attempted overhaul of law-enforcement methods in the early 2000s, funded by various external donors, failed to bring about changes in institutional practices and attitudes. “All the changes were cosmetic,” says Shamshybek Mamyrov, deputy head of the Chief Administration for Legal and Criminal Analysis at the Interior Ministry. He attributed the failure to what he described as “double standards” employed by former presidents Askar Akayev and Kurmanbek Bakiyev: the two leaders wanted police to improve professionalism in their ranks without trying to clean up corruption at the highest echelons of power. In addition, politicians during the Akayev and Bakiyev eras frequently used law-enforcement agencies to promote personal priorities, not necessarily uphold the law.
Reports of police misconduct have continued in the post-Bakiyev period. Law-enforcement officials have been accused of collaborating with criminal groups and of selectively targeting minorities during the June 2010 ethnic violence in southern Kyrgyzstan. There are also ongoing reports in southern Kyrgyzstan of police involvement in torture, unwarranted arrest, and the harassment of ethnic Uzbeks.
During my night on patrol, my team – Bakyt and Arsen – responded to several minor traffic violations, two gunfights at nightclubs, and two hit-and-run accidents.
One striking element about police work in Bishkek that I discovered was the complete lack of respect locals have for law-enforcement officers. In nearly all of the cases I observed suspects challenged the police, threatening them with physical violence and warnings about having influential government contacts.
“I am a son of a general and who are you?” a drunken man in his early twenties shouted at Arsen when he tried to arrest him. The man was allegedly involved in one of the nightclub shootings. This type of response is hardly a surprise to Arsen and Bakyt. “Everyone is somebody’s son in Bishkek,” they both told me.
As two teenage girls, both dressed to party, jaywalked across Manas Avenue, Arsen called out through a loud speaker: “Please use the walkway” The girls were fast to shout back: “It is my birthday! What’s your business?”
Asked about the worst part of their job, both men answered: “the recurring feeling of injustice.” Arsen explained that there are times when he and other officers seize a driver’s license from a drunk or aggressive motorist, only to see the accused the next day, driving around Bishkek like nothing happened because he or she had used government connections to escape punishment.
“They sometimes drive past us and wave their hands, sneering “I told ‘ya it wasn't worth it!’” said Bakyt. The feeling of injustice is especially acute when police commanders blame rank-and-file officers for failing to prevent accidents caused by drunk drivers, he added. Bakyt said that, lately, the worst scofflaws are drivers for members of parliament and government employees.
The two also said equipment shortages are common. Very few police even have handcuffs. Most drive old Russian VAZ-7s – cars that break down frequently. “We sometimes see drivers passing on a red light, but we simply can't catch them,” according to Bakyt, who drove the night I rode along. Instead of patrolling the streets and competing with speeding drivers, Bishkek policemen prefer to hide behind trees at busy intersections and step out waving their truncheons to flag down drivers.
Despite the frustrations, Bakyt and Arsen see plenty to like about the reform initiative. One major upside of the new system is that police arrive much faster at altercations and crime scenes, including muggings, fights and auto accidents. Previously patrol cars would leave from a central office in downtown Bishkek, losing valuable time as they drove to the city’s outskirts. Now they are often able to reach the destination within 2-5 minutes. “The number of calls from citizens has increased over the past month,” noted Aleksandr Leitin, the pilot project’s independent observer.
Police also like the switch to an 8-hour workday instead of 12-hour shifts. “I get time to spend with my family”, says Arsen, who used to leave home at dawn and come back after his kids were asleep.
The reform’s biggest challenge may be changing the attitudes of law-enforcement officers concerning the use of coercion. Bakyt and Arsen see the merit of respecting individual rights, and they acknowledged that the use of coercive methods may be harmful to promoting the rule of law. At the same time, they continue to see coercive tactics as a practical necessity. “How [else] would you find out if an alleged killer had accomplices?” asked Bakyt, who noted the existing investigatory capabilities of law-enforcement agencies are limited.
Both Bakyt and Arsen stressed that if the Bezopasnaya Doroga was to succeed, mechanisms would have to be put in place to prevent politicians from interceding in cases, both big and small, to rescue friends and relatives from punishment.
Mamyrov, the Interior Ministry official, agreed that the reform must not only involve police officers, but also politicians. “Change will only be possible if political leaders are clean,” he said.
Erica Marat is a commentator on Central Asian affairs.
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