Hands Off Cain
Kyrgyzstan

On June 27, 2007 Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiyev...

On June 27, 2007 Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiyev signed legislation amending Kyrgyzstan's criminal codes and abolishing the death penalty.

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On June 27, 2007 Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiyev signed legislation amending Kyrgyzstan's criminal codes and abolishing the death penalty.
According to the law, death penalty sentences will be replaced with life sentences. The legislation also mandates that arrest warrants be issued by courts and that prison sentences for some crimes be reduced. The Kyrgyzstan constitution was amended in January to state that "no one in the Kyrgyz Republic can be deprived of life," which abolished the use of capital punishment in the central Asian country. On December 5, 1998, then President Askar Akayev established a two-year moratorium that was subsequently renewed annually. Akayev’s government fell under a popular revolt sparked by disputed parliamentary elections in February 2005. Akayev’s 15-year rule came to an official end with his resignation as president in April. Acting president Kurmanbek Bakiyev, on April 28, 2005, said that Kyrgyzstan must abolish the death penalty. "I suggest that we consider exclusion of the death penalty clause from the constitution and its replacement with a lifetime sentence," he said at a constitutional conference in Bishkek. Bakiev won a landslide victory in July 2005 polls and took office as president in August 2005.

On December 16, 2020, once again Kyrgyzstan voted in favour of the Resolution on a Moratorium on the Use of the Death Penalty at the UN General Assembly, as in 2018, 2017.