Human rights activists demand to release elderly and seriously ill prisoners

Representatives of Bir Duino Human Rights Center demand to apply alternative measures of punishment to seriously ill and elderly prisoners and to release them on parole.
According to the human rights activists, in accordance with the UN Convention, keeping of convicts over 70 years old and suffering from serious illnesses is equal to torture in prison.
According to the State Penitentiary Service, 11 prisoners suffer from cancer. According to the human rights activists, one of the convicts of prison colony has gangrene, and an 84-year-old women is kept in prison colony for murder. Bir Duino demands to release all of them, as well as General Murat Sutalinov, who has been diagnosed with fourth stage cancer, and human rights defender Azimzhan Askarov, sentenced to life in prison, who is also seriously ill and belongs to the category of elderly prisoners.
The corresponding appeal was sent by the human rights defenders to the Ombudsman, the State Penitentiary Service and the National Center for Torture Prevention.