Six months ago, at the Madrid summit of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, Kazakhstan’s foreign minister publicly committed to several human rights reforms in Kazakhstan. We ask that you raise concern with Kazakhstan’s leadership about the lack of progress toward fulfilling these commitments.

I am writing to urge that the government of Kazakhstan refrain from extraditing to Uzbekistan Rafik Rakhmonov, an Uzbek asylum seeker. Extraditing Rakhmonov to Uzbekistan would violate Kazakhstan’s international obligations as a party to the 1951 Refugee Convention and the 1984 United Nations Convention against Torture.

In recent months there have been a few positive human rights developments in the region, including notably in Uzbekistan the release from prison of a half-dozen wrongfully detained human rights defenders and an agreement granting ICRC access to prisons. While these developments are to be welcomed, they should not eclipse the overall abysmal state of human rights in the country, and indeed in the region as a whole.

Human Rights Watch writes to urge Dr. Ihsanoglu to use his position as Secretary General of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference to support measures at the upcoming Summit of the Organisation of Islamic Conference in Dakar, Senegal on March 13-14 that would improve and strengthen the 1999 OIC Convention on Combating International Terrorism. In particular, the OIC should consider two amendments to the Convention to narrow its overbroad definition of terrorism and make absolutely clear that there is no sanction in Islam for deliberately attacking civilians, whatever the circumstances or justifications.

We write to express profound concern about the recent detention of Gabdurafih Temirbaev, an Uzbek national recognized as a refugee by the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) who, according to unconfirmed reports, is in the custody of the Committee for National Security (KNB) in Almaty.

In late November 2005 at least nine Uzbek nationals, fleeing persecution, were forcibly returned from Kazakhstan to Uzbekistan. Four of the men were formally registered with the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) as asylum seekers and were therefore already within the asylum process.

The presidential election scheduled for December 4, 2005 will be an important test of Kazakhstan’s commitment to democracy, and a factor in determining your country’s place in the community of rights-respecting nations and in international bodies like the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). Human Rights Watch values its dialogue with the government of Kazakhstan on critical issues relating to human rights and the need to initiate reforms. We would like to express our strong concern over moves by your government to restrict fundamental rights and freedoms of the people of Kazakhstan, and to offer concrete recommendations for improving human rights in advance of the upcoming election.

On Friday, January 21, 2005, authorities at the Shiderty settlement colony (a minimum security detention facility) placed Galymzhan Zhakianov, the co-founder of the Democratic Choice of Kazakhstan (DVK) party and chairman of the DVK political council, in a punishment cell for allegedly shirking his required prison work duty on a cattle farm.