Two of several hundred inmates who last week launched a hunger strike in the Central Asian nation of Kyrgyzstan in protest of dire prison conditions died Monday of tuberculosis, officials said. The deaths come after inmates of three jails declared a hunger strike on Friday, with prisoners from more correctional facilities joining them later.
Several hundred prisoners from 11 penal colonies and six pre-trial detention centres are now on strike. "Today two inmates have died from a severe form of tuberculosis," said Erkin Konulkulov, a spokesman for the State Service for the Execution of Punishment.
In addition, more than 40 of those on strike sought medical help because of deteriorating health, the country's special prosecutor Kubanychbek Mamakeyev told AFP. Inmates and their relatives, who held a rally in front of the government building in the Kyrgyz capital Bishkek earlier in the day, are seeking to draw the government's attention to poor conditions and treatment of prisoners.
But authorities say the inmates are simply unhappy with the government's ongoing campaign against organised crime. "Their main demand is to release detained, arrested and accused criminal leaders and stop prosecuting them," ombudsman Tursunbek Akun told reporters. "They are blackmailing the state by putting forward such demands. That is no good."
An inmate who agreed to be only identified by his first name Ulan indicated that the poor treatment of their imprisoned criminal leaders was indeed an issue as authorities were denying them meetings with relatives and taking away their food and clothes. "We will be on our hunger strike tomorrow too," he told AFP by telephone. Local rights activist Yevgenia Krapivina said the inmates who had suffered from tuberculosis should not have gone on a hunger strike because of their ill health. "A refusal to eat might have provoked their death," Krapivina told AFP. She added that many prisoners had in the past died of torture and only a post-mortem could determine the true cause of death.