ULUSLARARASI İNSAN HAKLARI KORUMA KOMİTESİ TÜRKİYE - 2129. Sk. No:1 D:1

During the scandalous prosecution of our employee in the Republic of Kazakhstan Mrs. Bibigul Balpyk, IHRDC human rights activists invited journalist Mr, Makhambet Abzhan to attend the hearing in the Nur-Sultan court. His article was published at https://teletype.in/@abzhannews/7CgWwJ-Wj_H and here is the translated text:

Heart attack, coronary heart disease, encephalopathy, protrusions: why is the patient returned to the pre-trial detention center?

November 11 will be eight months after the arrest of Bibigul Balpyk, director of the Central Asia Bureau of the International human rights defense committee  (CIPDH. France). The 59-year-old human rights defender was detained on suspicion of fraud in the amount of 750 thousand dollars and incitement to a bribe for assistance in obtaining a subcontract for the construction of the Center for International Organizations in Nur-Sultan from the previously convicted Talgat Nurzhanov.

The applicant was convicted 10 years ago of bribing an investigator of the anticorrosive, but this fact does not seem to bother anyone, except for the defense.

On October 1, Viktoria Semyonova, judge of the Specialized Interdistrict Criminal Court, refused to change the preventive measure to a milder one for the defense, despite the need to hospitalize Balpyk.

Judge Semenova forbade the journalist to take photo and video recordings, as well as audio recordings, so everything in this text is transferred from memory.
The journalist saw the defendant only remotely – the courts in the capital still pass through Zoom – and even so the woman looked very unhealthy: pale, with reddened eyes, she could hardly get to the monitor using crutches. However, there is nothing surprising: during the trial, the lawyers once again voiced several diagnoses that Balpyk made.

The woman was unable to familiarize herself with the indictment and the materials of the criminal case not only because of health problems – the investigator arrived at the pre-trial detention center without lawyers, and the arrested woman was still not allowed to hand over glasses.

Semenova gave the defendant two weeks to familiarize herself.
The defense brought to the court a certificate on the state of health of Balpyk, showing that since the moment of arrest, the health of the person under investigation has sharply deteriorated. In the conclusion of the Dostyk Center VKK, which examines the inmates of the pre-trial detention center, the following diagnoses are listed: disc herniation, radicular syndrome, spinal hemangioma, vertebral spondylodiscitis, lumbar vertebra osteoporosis, Lyubmalgia.

On October 1, the court interrupted the session several times due to pain in the defendant’s back – it was necessary to take painkillers. However, Balpyk tried to be cheerful, actively reacted to what was happening, trying to refute the arguments of the investigation about the “need” to extend the guard. And the “necessity” in the prosecutor’s statement was standard: Balpyk “could hide” (it was not reported how exactly she could do it. Her passport was seized anyway).

Balpyk, who denies her guilt, expressed bewilderment how she could leave the country if the investigator imposed an exit ban. – “Do we have the KNB and border guards not monitoring the state of the border? Yes, given my state of health, I can’t even go somewhere, I can’t even walk 100 meters.”- said Balpyk.

The judge listened in silence, but it was not possible to understand what was on her face at that moment – the monitor covered the entire courtroom, so the judge’s figure could only be seen from afar. However, the prosecutor believes that Balpyk may also hide inside the country. There was a pause. It seems that even the judge was taken aback by the reasoning of the prosecutor.

The state prosecutor interrupted the pause and read out the conclusion of the SIZO administration: Balpyk’s condition is satisfactory, treatment is possible in custody. The prosecutor bowed his head, apparently not finding an answer, to the defendant’s remark that there were no doctors in the remand prison, and that only four nurses were in charge.

The defense emphasized: the preliminary investigation has been completed, detention for more than a year is not required, especially since Balpyk’s diseases are progressing. They asked to be released under house arrest or bail.
The judge spent more than an hour and a half in the deliberation room, after which he came out with a decision: to leave Balpyk in custody.

On October 16, the defense received a 46-page opinion from the Scientific and Practical Center for Expert Research of Kazakhstan. A specialist in forensic medicine with 27 years of experience in the specialty of forensic medicine, Vitaly Kolesnikov came to the conclusion that Balpyk needs hospitalization and conservative treatment in a 24-hour hospital with further examination and supervision of a therapist, neurosurgeon and cardiologist, which is impossible in the conditions isolation from society, that is, in the institution CE-166/1.

In the conclusion of Kolesnikov, new diagnoses appeared. What the defense was warning about – the deterioration of the condition of the arrested person in the pre-trial detention center – became a reality.
The main diagnosis in the conclusion of Kolesnikov was called dyscirculatory encephalopathy of the 2nd degree – this is an organic disease in which the brain tissues are disturbed, which leads to dysfunctions of the brain.

The list of all diagnoses takes three pages, here are some of them: persistent headache, osteochondrosis of the cervical spine, arterial hypertension, cerebrosclerosis, numerous protrusions, osteophytes, neuromuscular pain syndrome and numerous other diseases of the spine. From concomitant diagnoses – ischemic heart disease, angina pectoris, myocardial infarction, arterial hypertension of the 2nd degree. It also talks about the complication of concomitant diseases and the risk of stroke.

On October 20, the administration of the pre-trial detention center agreed to hospitalize the patient in a private medical center. On November 5, during the main trial, it turned out that Balpyk was handcuffed to a bed in a prone position 24 hours a day, which embarrassed even the judge – during the trial, the patient was unfastened from the bed, allowing her to sit down at the computer monitor. It also turned out that the leadership of the pre-trial detention center is putting pressure on the medical center, forcing doctors to conclude that Balpyk is on the mend. Judge Semenova did not seem to be embarrassed by this moment. She again refused to change the measure of restraint – she believes that there is no reason for that.

And so, today the administration of the pre-trial detention center has achieved its goal – Balpyk, who requires three operations on the spine, is returned to the pre-trial detention center. As an argument, the representative of the pre-trial detention center gave an example of a paralyzed man in a cell: nothing, he suffers.
If the change in the preventive measure is not affected by such a list of diseases as that of Balpyk, it is time to diagnose the judicial system itself – a heart attack of justice. It seems that the story with Aron Atabek did not teach the authorities anything – it is more convenient for them to bring a person to a dying state, and then release him due to a fatal illness.