Kyrgyzstan's human rights commissioner, Tursunbai Bakiruulu,...

Kyrgyzstan's human rights commissioner, Tursunbai Bakiruulu, said he wrote to President Askar Akayev to propose abolishing the death penalty in the country, which declared a moratorium on capital punishment in 2000 and has extended it every year since. "I see a ban on capital punishment as one of the ways to implement the national strategy, the motto of which is 'Kyrgyzstan is a country of human rights'," Bakiruulu told reporters.