The Bishkek group of Amnesty International
(AI) began its work on human rights in Bishkek one year ago to join the efforts with
Amnesty International to strengthen its human rights mission worldwide. After only eight
months of work, the Bishkek group received official recognition from the International
Secretariat of Amnesty International and become a full Amnesty group. Amnesty
International - Bishkek is based at American University in Kyrgyzstan where the most
active and open-minded students in Kyrgyzstan study. The unique atmosphere and support of
the university's administration encourages students to be involved in different kinds of
extracurricular activities. Participation in Amnesty International--Bishkek's activities
is an excellent chance for students to make a difference in the human rights of not only
Kyrgyzstan but in other countries and continents as well.
The first year of AI Bishkek encountered difficulties in the beginning with
fundraising. The group tried all kinds of ways to raise money for the group's activities
including selling fresh fruits at school in the evenings, collecting donations from
individuals including AUK professors who showed great support for the human rights work
done by Amnesty members, and selling t-shirts with the group's logo. The group also faced
misunderstandings from ordinary citizens as well as the students. One of the most frequent
questions was "Why don't you work on individual cases from Kyrgyzstan. We had to
explain that it is a part of Amnesty International’s mandate that AI members must not
work on cases from their own countries as it might cause problems for them in their
country. The second thing we always explain is the reliability of the International
Secretariat of Amnesty International that checks all information is checked with different
sources and of different levels.
We hope that ordinary citizens will be more active in building a developed Democracy
and Civil Society where human rights are fully respected. People still believe that
struggling for their rights is not worth it and will only cause them troubles from the
government. One of the most important activities that AI-Bishkek are doing now is the
Human Rights Education Project for the high school students of Bishkek and its suburbs.
The project is indispensable, as there lacked any tradition in Soviet society of teaching
about human rights to ordinary citizens. They are not aware of what kind of rights they
have due to the fact that they are human beings. This Human Rights Education project is
one of the goals that Amnesty International tries to achieve through the network of its
members worldwide which now total more than one million member in more than 160 countries
around the world. The Human Rights Education Project is supported by the Soros Foundation
Kyrgyzstan.
This year Amnesty International launches campaign against torture. More than 60
countries will join simultaneously this worldwide one-year campaign. Kyrgyzstan is one of
them. The name of the campaign is "Take a step to stamp out torture." It is
important that the tortured people do not remain silent and speak out when the government
agents and security forces torture them. Torture still exists in more 150 countries of the
world, and many survivors of torture are afraid of making the fact of being tortured
public known. They fear that they will be subject to revenge for doing this. The Bishkek
group of AI will join the campaign against torture on October 18 by issuing a press
release to the Mass Media representatives in Kyrgyzstan. In a recent seminar in Moscow
given by Amnesty International, AI Bishkek members received valuable information on the
strategies of the anti-torture campaign, how to make their campaign effective in
eliminating torture as an abuse of the fundamental human rights declared in the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights. The Bishkek group of AI really wants to make a difference and
improve the human right situation worldwide.
Kadyr Toktogulov, Coordinator of Amnesty International
Bishkek—Kyrgyzstan, sophomore at American University in Kyrgyzstan.