Kazakhstan: US Helsinki Commission visited the imprisoned human rights defender Yevgeny Zhovtis
Last week the representatives of the Commission for Security and Cooperation in Europe (U.S. Helsinki Commission) visited Yevgeny Zhovtis, the Kazakhstani human rights defender, placed in the Ust-Kamenogorsk prison colony. The Commission members spent two hours with Zhovtis and reported "bad incarceration conditions, unfair treatment by the colony administration".
Ferghana.Ru reported earlier that on September 3, 2009 the Balkhash district court of Almaty Oblast in Kazakhstan sentenced Yevgeny Zhovtis, the Director of Kazakhstani Bureau for Human Rights and Law Observance, to 4 years of imprisonment in the penal colony settlement, for vehicular manslaughter of Kanat Moldabaev.
During the meeting with the Commission representatives, Zhovtis named major procedural violations "that took place during the investigation and following appeal process". For instance, the courts of Kazakhstan ignored the fact that Yevgeny Zhovtis "came to terms with the family of Moldabaev. According to the legislation, this should have produced positive result of the case".
After meeting Yevgeny Zhovtis, the Commission addressed the message, where it urged the government of Kazakhstan "to treat the human rights defender fairly while his appeal works its way to the Supreme Court".
The Commission Chairman Benjamin Cardin, which addressed his concern to Kazakh Foreign Minister Kanat Saudabaev in February, noted that "the Commission is thankful to Kazakh government for the opportunity to meet prominent human rights defender".
In his turn, the Commission co-Chairman Alcee Hastings said that "in his work as human rights activist, Zhovtis has always tried to work with Kazakhstan’s government to promote positive changes".
The Commission expressed hope that "the Supreme Court would take up his case and address the procedural violations in his previous trial and appeal".
Meanwhile, Hastings underlined "I was very happy to hear that Yevgeny Zhovtis, a longstanding friend of the Helsinki Commission and inspiration to human rights activists everywhere, is in good health and his spirits are unbroken". Hastings also had an impression that "Zhovtis is being treated in a more restrictive way than all the other prisoners, particularly regarding working conditions". "Zhovtis is allowed to communicate with family and friends, but he is barred from outside work and forced to do menial labor inside the prison", the Commission leaders highlighted.
"We are concerned about the fairness with which Zhovtis is being treated and call on the government to provide him the same freedoms afforded other prisoners in the facility. Zhovtis should be allowed to find his own job and leave the facility", senator Cardin noted.
Moreover, the Helsinki Commission called on Kazakh authorities to improve conditions at the prison, where several hundred prisoners share two toilets.