Human rights activist Azimzhan Askarov dies in prison

Kyrgyz human rights activist Azimzhan Askarov passed away yesterday in the hospital of the penal colony No. 47., his lawyer Valerian Vakhitov said.

A. Askarov has been seriously ill for a long time. He had all the signs of community-acquired pneumonia. However, the convict was not provided with proper medical assistance in prison.

The lawyer managed to achieve his transfer to the hospital only yesterday, but the doctors could not save the human rights activist — it was too late.

Azimzhan Askarov was accused of inciting ethnic hatred and murder of a policeman during the June events in the south of the republic in 2010. In 2016, the UN Human Rights Committee recognized the human rights defender as a victim of torture, and all court decisions in his criminal case — unjust and recommended to release him. However, Kyrgyzstan did not follow these recommendations.