Women’s Day protesters attacked then arrested in Kyrgyzstan

While countries across the world celebrated International Women’s Day on March 8, dozens of women in Kyrgystan were detained for “violating public order” after coming under attack by masked men.

Activists were gathered in a square in the capital, Bishkek, to protest violence against women when the men set upon them, tearing up their posters, popping balloons with toy guns, physically attacking them, and throwing eggs. Some of the men wore traditional Kyrgyz white felt hats, according to news reports.

Police arrived during the melee, but instead of pursuing the male mob, they herded about 70 activists into a bus that took them to Sverdlovsk police station in Bishkek. Some of the women reported being physically abused by the police, Human Rights Watch reported.

“People should be protected, not penalized, when exercising their right to assemble and protest peacefully,” said Hillary Margolis, senior women’s rights researcher at HRW. “Instead, on a day meant to celebrate women’s rights, these activists were doubly punished—first by an angry mob and then by the police.”

HRW called for an investigation into the arrests and reported that Kyrgyzstan’s parliament held a hearing on Wednesday about what happened at the protest. “The deputy minister of culture, information and tourism, Nurzhigit Kadyrbekov, implied that the marchers intentionally stoked a response from officials, saying that ‘they came out to create a stir and to create a sensation’ in order to ‘create hype,’” the group said.

In the end, it seems to have been the police who inadvertently created useful hype for the women: “It was thanks to these aggressors that the whole world knows how bad things are for women’s rights in Kyrgyzstan,” Dinara Oshurakhunova, a human rights activist who was among those detained, told HRW.

Activists told Reuters that Kyrgyz women’s rights are deteriorating, pointing to multiple cases of forced marriage and domestic violence during a time in which right-wing ideology has resurged. A December 2019 “Feminnale” exhibit at Kyrgyzstan’s National Art Museum “generated a huge backlash, including threats of violence against all participants,” Al Jazeera reported. The government removed some of the pieces of art on display, replacing them with signs that said “censored.” The museum director eventually resigned after receiving rape threats.