The police and the Sverdlov district administration were notified of the route of the march, as evidenced by the presence of police officers on Victory Square in Bishkek city centre before the march started. When unknown vigilantes wearing masks attacked participants, instead of detaining the attackers, the police proceeded to arrest us. In effect, police officers became de facto accomplices to the attack.
About 70 participants and journalists were then taken by force to the district police station and unlawfully detained there for three hours. We were not told why we were being held and what we were accused of, despite repeated questions from our side. The unlawful actions of the police were recorded in countless videos and photographs of the events, which were widely reported by both the national and international media, leading to widespread condemnation.
Civil activists, non-governmental and international organisations, foreign embassies expressed their solidarity with the participants and organisers of the march, criticising the actions of the attackers and the police. A few members of parliament voiced concerns, posed questions and demanded an official investigation from the state. Since then, dozens of participants have filed complaints against the district police force responsible.
Meanwhile, a group of outraged citizens decided to hold a solidarity rally two days after the march, spontaneously and without consultation with most of the organisers. The latter were still reeling from the deep emotional and physical traumas of the attack, not to speak of the material costs and the damage to relationships. In this context, the rally organisers positioned themselves as not necessarily supporting “those crazy feminists” and the LGBTQ community, but as citizens outraged by the actions of the police and the nationalists’ attack on women.
The 10 March rally was held with the approval and under the protection of the Bishkek police. Indeed, the organisers repeatedly thanked law enforcement agencies in public, while emphasising how the police “got it slightly wrong on 8 March”. The event became a show of a politics of respectability, epitomising the “good citizens” who only oppose violence against “respectable” women, rather than all women, including lesbians, trans, sex workers, and HIV positive women.
In their eyes, the only “real” women are able-bodied, fertile, married, heterosexual, and middle-class. It is ironic that an event that was aimed at showing solidarity with “what we represent”, was actually organised without us. This rally instrumentalised our story to advance a politics of respectability, completely missing the point of what we stand for.
But even “proper” women as defined by the majority are not guaranteed safety. On 25 March, the Kyrgyz government introduced a state of emergency in order to stop the spread of the COVID-19 epidemic. Today, constitutional norms have been suspended in response to what is perceived as an existential threat. Yet there is another ongoing public health crisis that has not been similarly prioritised. For many women, children and LGBTQ people under lockdown, having to stay in their family homes poses more of a danger than any virus. It is a well-known fact that the home is not a safe place for women, who are statistically more likely to be killed by a current or former partner or spouse. Having to stay at home for prolonged periods of time is correlated with an increase in cases of domestic violence. For instance, during the long break for the New Year holidays in Kyrgyzstan, multiple reports of gruesome murders, torture and abuse appeared in the local press.
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Mohira Suyarkulova | Radio Free (2020-04-01T00:00:00+00:00) “Your traditions, our blood!”: The struggle against patriarchal violence in Kyrgyzstan. Retrieved from https://www.radiofree.org/2020/04/01/your-traditions-our-blood-the-struggle-against-patriarchal-violence-in-kyrgyzstan/
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