Like in many other post-Soviet countries, detention cells in Kyrgyzstan leave much to be desired. People who know what they are talking about speak of cramped, dark, and dank concrete or stone cells where a person awaits completion of the investigation. Since it is not only the guilty who find themselves in detention cell, the question of how fair this treatment is seems to be quite reasonable.

A young woman, 22, spent eight months in these conditions and she was pregnant seven months of them. She was ferried to the maternity house right from the detention cell. Three days after she gave birth to her child and two days after his death, the young woman was brought back. How grave a crime does it take to deserve all of that?

Zulkhumor Tukhtanazarova was born to a peasant family in the settlement of Bazarkorgon of the Osh region (Dzhalalabad region now) in 1980. She joined her parents in the fields after eight years at school.

Tukhtanazarova was going to the fields one day in March 2004 when she was assaulted. Several young men raped the girl, battered her, and ran away. The parents were shocked but their appeals to the police were futile. The disinterested police never found the rapists. Unfortunately, the young woman's troubles were only beginning.

"These accursed policemen let these bastards get away with it and closed the investigation," the young woman's mother said. "They raped my daughter and hit her in the head with such force that she never recovered. I took her to doctors but nothing helped. She did not recover. She began disappearing for lengthy periods of time. It was on one such occasion that she encountered a bunch of tarts and thieves."

Tukhtanazarova met two ex-convicts and hookers. Short of money for booze, they ventured out in search of something to remedy this state of affairs and took the girl with them. The gang ended stealing some clothes and an old rug (all of that cost about $25) from in front of a block of flats.

Patrolmen from the Bazarkorgon Police Station caught them red-handed. Tukhtanazarova was the first to be questioned, the feeble young woman who did not even understand what was happening.

"After two or three questions the woman-detective began screaming at me," Tukhtanazarova said. According to the young woman, the detective asked her, "Did you steal these clothes?" - "No, I didn't. It was these people. I do not really know them," she replied. "They had asked me to stand watch and inform them should someone approach... I said so several times but the detective wouldn't listen. She cuffed me instead and I cuffed her right back. They began hitting me with truncheons then and locked me up afterwards."

Used to beating and humiliation that accompanied her all her life, the young woman becomes animated when she recalls how she "cuffed her right back." She didn't - couldn't - know what this blow would mean. In fact, eight months in the detention cell was not all that was in store for Tukhtanazarova and others.

"They tortured and humiliated us every day. They merely entered the cell and began beating us just for the fun of it," she said. "I was sold to men for 100 soms (an equivalent of $2.5) - pushed into their cells and let out again in the morning. And they were calling us tarts."

Absolutely inexperienced, Tukhtanazarova became pregnant. The pregnant woman was kept in a cramped damp cell, semi-starved for weeks on end.

"They did not even bring me water of bread every now and then," Tukhtanazarova said. "What my family was bringing was withheld from me... I had cramps once. Diarrhea began. I begged the wardens to give me something. They gave me some pills but pain only worsened. I didn't know it was contractions."

Tukhtanazarova's inmates called wardens and the young woman was taken to a maternity house. The baby was too weak and died the following day. The young mother herself was extremely weak, but the police handcuffed her again and took back to the detention cell.

At the trial the following day Tukhtanazarova pleaded guilty. All others, even the man who had spent 12 years behind the bars once, were sentenced to a year each (sentence to be suspended) and released. Not a word was said in the courtroom about how the young women had been tortured or about her baby conceived in the detention cell.

The mother did not even know anything about her daughter's pregnancy. "They let me see her only once, and we were not permitted to talk," the mother said. "That was all. They brought out some letters that they said were from her, but it was not her handwriting, and the letters only repeated one and the same phrase, "I'm all right. Do not worry." I brought some food for her once but the wardens said she was in the maternity house. I almost fainted."

The mother and the daughter knocked at every door but no state official would listen. They approached The Air then, a district human rights organization. Its leader Azimzhan Askarov eventually seemed to have accomplished at least something. The two detectives who had beaten Tukhtanazarova and their pals were sacked. Criminal charges were pressed against four policemen. "Unfortunately, we all know how the system works," Askarov said. "The case against the policemen is handled by the court martial in Osh, 130 kilometers from here. Barely making ends meet, the victims could not attend the trial. The defendants were acquitted."

This sad saga should have ended here but it didn't. Three years later the young woman was arrested on charges of theft again and thrown into the same detention cell. The tortures this time exceeded even the previous ones. "When she was released from the detention cell and came to us again, we saw that needles had been driven under her nails," Askarov said. "There were bruises all over the body. We have the tape. The Tukhtanazarovs and we will do what we can to restore justice."

Tukhtanazarova spent two days in the detention cell but charges against her are more serious now. The investigation is over. The court already met once but the date for the next meeting was not set without an explanation.

District Prosecutor Rasulbek Umarov would not answer questions concerning tortures in the detention cell. His Assistant Ermamat Kozhoakmatov merely said that a complaint from Tukhtanazarova was being considered, the official conclusion was not ready yet, and that was that.

Should we have expected anything else? Indeed, what shall we expect from the men who torture a helpless feeble girl? What shall we expect when the men who are supposed to enforce the law break it instead?

There is nothing new about the problem of violence in detention cells in Kyrgyzstan. The matter was even discussed at the roundtable conference "Consolidation of healthy forces of society against torture" that took place within the framework the nationwide campaign Stop Torture! in January 2006. Efforts of human rights activists and other organizations resulted in an amendment to Article 305 of the Criminal Code in 2003, stipulating prosecution for torture.

In the meantime, nobody has ever been prosecuted under this article of the Criminal Code. Inmates of detention cell remain at policemen's mercy.