Key Insights

• The September 2025 murder of 17-year-old Aisuluu Mukasheva triggered a nationwide debate in Kyrgyzstan over whether capital punishment should be reinstated for crimes against women and children.
• President Sadyr Japarov formally proposed constitutional amendments to reintroduce the death penalty, which had been abolished in 2007 and permanently prohibited following ratification of the Second Optional Protocol to the ICCPR in 2010.
• On 10 December 2025, Kyrgyzstan’s Constitutional Court ruled the proposal unconstitutional and “literally impossible”, citing both the constitutional guarantee of the right to life and binding international treaty obligations.
• Civil society and international organisations warned that reinstatement would exacerbate existing weaknesses in the justice system, including low institutional trust, documented torture in detention, and high levels of perceived corruption.
• The episode exposed deeper structural failures in Kyrgyzstan’s approach to gender-based violence and raised questions about growing populist pressures on the rule of law.

Introduction

On 27 September 2025, 17-year-old Aisuluu Mukasheva was abducted, raped, and murdered in Kyrgyzstan. Her death provoked an outpouring of public grief and anger, with social media flooded by demands for stronger protections against gender-based violence (GBV) and femicide. Within days, President Sadyr Japarov had instructed his administration to draft constitutional amendments to reintroduce capital punishment for crimes against women and children — a punishment Kyrgyzstan had formally abolished eighteen years earlier.^[1]

The episode set in motion one of the most consequential debates over criminal justice, human rights, and constitutional law in Kyrgyzstan’s recent history. What followed over the next ten weeks was not only a legal contest over the permissibility of capital punishment, but also a broader reckoning with the country’s record on GBV, its commitments under international law, and the health of its democratic institutions.

From Public Outrage to Constitutional Amendment

Mukasheva’s killing was not an isolated tragedy in the public consciousness. Her death recalled two earlier cases — the murders of Aizada Kanatbekova in 2021 and Burulai Turdalyk kyzy in 2018 — both of which had exposed serious failures in police protection and law enforcement response. By late 2025, the accumulated weight of these cases, combined with widespread frustration at impunity for perpetrators of GBV, produced a public demand for punitive action that the government moved quickly to accommodate.^[2]

On 12 October 2025, draft constitutional amendments were published for public comment, proposing to rewrite Article 25 of the Constitution to permit capital punishment as an “exceptional” sanction for the rape of a child and for rape resulting in murder. A parallel draft sought to withdraw Kyrgyzstan from the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), the treaty under which the country had committed in 2010 to the permanent abolition of the death penalty.^[3]

By early December 2025, President Japarov formally asked the Constitutional Court to rule on whether the proposed amendments were lawful. Legal scholars and commentators at the time noted that the proposal faced an almost insurmountable obstacle: Kyrgyzstan’s Constitution already prohibited capital punishment under Article 25, making any amendment to reintroduce it an attempt to bypass an entrenched constitutional protection. The initiative was widely characterised as a populist response to public pressure, one that distracted attention from the systemic failures of law enforcement and the judiciary that had allowed perpetrators to act with impunity in the first place.^[4]

The Constitutional Court’s Ruling and International Response

On 10 December 2025, the Constitutional Court delivered its verdict: the reinstatement of the death penalty was “unconstitutional, impermissible, and legally impossible.”^[5] The Court held that the proposed amendments were incompatible with Article 25 of the Constitution, which guarantees the right to life as an absolute and non-derogable protection. It further held that Kyrgyzstan’s ratification of the Second Optional Protocol created an international legal obligation that remained binding regardless of any subsequent legislative or constitutional action at the domestic level. Crucially, the Court ruled that the proposals could not even be put to a popular referendum, closing off the one procedural avenue that might otherwise have enabled the government to circumvent the prohibition by appealing directly to the electorate.^[6]

The ruling drew a broadly positive international response. The International Commission of Jurists welcomed the decision, noting that the Court’s reasoning correctly situated international human rights treaty obligations within Kyrgyzstan’s domestic constitutional framework, and that the ruling set an important precedent for the relationship between international law and constitutional amendment. Ahead of the verdict, UN Human Rights Chief Volker Türk had publicly urged the Kyrgyz authorities to abandon the proposals, arguing that there was no credible empirical evidence that capital punishment deters serious crime, and that what the situation required was a victim-centred approach to justice built around effective law enforcement, access to support services, and meaningful accountability.^[7]

The European Union and the Council of Europe had also registered formal opposition in October 2025, reaffirming their unequivocal stance against capital punishment on the grounds that it is irreversible, that no justice system is infallible, and that the risk of executing an innocent person can never be fully eliminated. Both institutions called on Kyrgyzstan to address the underlying causes of violence against women rather than pursue measures that, however symbolically appealing, carried no evidence of effectiveness.^[8]

Structural Weaknesses and the Limits of Punitive Responses

The death penalty debate unfolded against a backdrop of well-documented and long-standing weaknesses in Kyrgyzstan’s justice system — weaknesses that the proposal did nothing to address and that, in the view of many human rights observers, made extending an irreversible punishment all the more dangerous. The central critique advanced by civil society organisations and international bodies was not simply that capital punishment is wrong in principle, but that it was being proposed for deployment within a system that lacks the institutional capacity, independence, and integrity to apply it safely.^[9]

On the question of institutional trust, the data are unambiguous. According to the 2024 Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index, Kyrgyzstan scored 25 out of 100, placing it 146th out of 180 countries assessed — a ranking that reflects both a poorly functioning anti-corruption environment and the limited effectiveness of oversight mechanisms. These figures are compounded by survey data on public confidence in law enforcement specifically. Trust in the Ministry of Internal Affairs stood at just 38.6 out of 100 in the Index of Public Trust for the first half of 2025, with the Ministry registering an equally poor 28.9 out of 100 in the corresponding corruption perception survey. In practical terms, these numbers describe a situation in which a large proportion of the population does not trust the police to act impartially or honestly — a problem of considerable significance when considering a punishment that can never be undone.^[10]

Civil society organisations also flagged a troubling parallel development that received comparatively little public attention during the height of the death penalty debate. On 25 June 2025, Kyrgyzstan’s parliament voted to abolish the National Centre for the Prevention of Torture (NCPT), an independent oversight body established under the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture (OPCAT) and mandated to conduct unannounced inspections of all places of detention. Its functions were transferred to the Ombudsperson’s Office, an institution that, while formally independent, lacks the operational autonomy, dedicated resources, and structural separation from government that effective torture prevention oversight requires.^[11]

Commentators also drew attention to the broader political climate in which the death penalty proposal emerged. Kyrgyzstan’s April 2024 “foreign representatives” law, modelled closely on Russian foreign agents legislation, imposed significant registration, reporting, and labelling burdens on non-profit organisations receiving foreign funding, with non-compliance carrying the risk of forced liquidation. The practical effect has been to reduce the operational capacity of civil society organisations engaged in human rights monitoring, legal aid, and advocacy for survivors of GBV — precisely the functions that are most needed to identify systemic failures and hold state actors accountable.^[12]

Taken together — low institutional trust, weakened torture oversight, restricted civil society — these developments describe a justice environment in which the structural preconditions for the safe application of capital punishment do not exist. The death penalty proposal, read in this context, was not a targeted response to a specific legal gap but rather a politically visible gesture that bypassed the harder and less photogenic work of institutional reform. That the proposal advanced as far as a Constitutional Court referral, despite its evident legal impossibility, is itself a measure of the pressure that populist sentiment can exert on formal legal processes.

Post-Ruling Developments: National Debate and Institutional Follow-Up

Following the Constitutional Court’s December 2025 ruling, public discourse in Kyrgyzstan has gradually shifted — at least in official channels — from the question of capital punishment toward the structural failures that the death penalty debate exposed. In March 2026, Matilda Bogner, the UN Human Rights Regional Representative for Central Asia, noted that Kyrgyz officials, including the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, had reaffirmed the country’s commitment to the rule of law in the wake of the Court’s decision.^[13] At the institutional level, the UN Human Rights Office confirmed that it is actively supporting the Ministry of Internal Affairs in developing a new risk assessment system for GBV cases — a tool intended to enable law enforcement to identify warning signs and intervene before violence escalates.^[14] This marks a meaningful, if preliminary, step toward the kind of early-intervention infrastructure that human rights bodies had long called for. Yet the broader national legislative picture remains unchanged. There is no evidence as of the date of publication of new parliamentary initiatives on GBV in the Jogorku Kenesh, the Kyrgyz parliament, directly traceable to the post-ruling period, and no publicly announced government programme to reform the domestic violence response architecture beyond the risk assessment cooperation with the UN.^[15] Meanwhile, the data continue to paint a troubling picture: according to the Kyrgyz Interior Ministry, in the first six months of 2025 alone, police registered 10,164 cases of domestic violence — a 35 percent increase compared to the same period in 2024.^[16] Regional analytical outlet CABAR.asia has highlighted the absence of femicide as a legally recognised offence in Kyrgyzstan’s criminal code, a gap that civil society actors argue allows courts to treat the most severe forms of gender-motivated killing as ordinary homicide, obscuring the gendered dimension of the crime and limiting the deterrent effect of the law.^[17]4 In this context, the Constitutional Court’s ruling, while legally significant, has not yet catalysed the systemic legislative response that the scale of GBV in Kyrgyzstan requires.

Conclusion

The Constitutional Court’s December 2025 ruling confirmed that Kyrgyzstan’s legal architecture, at least for now, holds firm against populist pressure for punitive regression. The outcome demonstrated that a rule of law process that is predictable and consistent does not delay justice, it strengthens it. That the proposal was blocked not merely on procedural grounds but on the basis of entrenched constitutional and international treaty obligations is itself significant: it signals that Kyrgyzstan’s formal legal commitments retain force even under conditions of intense public pressure.^[18]GBV

Yet the months since the ruling have revealed how wide the gap remains between that formal resilience and meaningful progress on the ground. The most concrete institutional development to emerge from the post-ruling period is a UN-supported risk assessment system under development within the Ministry of Internal Affairs — a useful, if modest, first step. No new parliamentary initiative on GBV has been publicly advanced in the Jogorku Kenesh, no government programme to reform the domestic violence response architecture has been announced, and the criminal code still does not recognise femicide as a distinct offence. Domestic violence registrations, meanwhile, rose by 35 percent in the first half of 2025 compared to the same period in 2024. The recurrence of high-profile cases — Burulai in 2018, Aizada in 2021, Aisuluu in 2025 — each met by expressions of public outrage, political pledges, and ultimately limited systemic reform, describes a pattern that sentencing law alone cannot break.

What is required is sustained investment in the institutions, services, and cultural frameworks that enable women to seek protection before violence occurs, and justice after it does. The ruling closed a constitutional door. It has not yet opened the political will needed to address what lies behind it.

Policy Recommendations

For the Government of Kyrgyzstan:

• Invest in evidence-based prevention and response mechanisms for GBV, including timely law enforcement intervention, comprehensive victim support services, and judicial training, in place of punitive measures that carry no demonstrated deterrent effect.^[19]
• Restore and strengthen independent oversight of places of detention by reinstating a fully independent torture prevention mechanism in compliance with the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture.^[20]
• Review and repeal legislation that restricts civil society activity, including the 2024 “foreign representatives” law, in order to enable independent monitoring of GBV and victims’ rights advocacy.

For International Actors:

• Continue technical and financial support to Kyrgyzstan’s Ministry of Internal Affairs and judiciary for the development of risk assessment systems and victim-centred response protocols for GBV, building on existing UN Human Rights cooperation.^[21]
• Provide legal assistance and advocacy platforms to civil society organisations operating under restricted conditions, ensuring that victims’ voices can continue to reach domestic and international accountability mechanisms.

^[1] UN Human Rights, ‘Kyrgyzstan: Reintroduction of death penalty would violate international law, Türk warns’ (OHCHR, 20 October 2025) <https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2025/10/kyrgyzstan-reintroduction-death-penalty-would-violate-international-law-turk&gt; accessed 2 May 2026.

^[2] Civil Rights Defenders, ‘Kyrgyzstan: Proposal to reinstate the death penalty violates human rights obligations and fails to protect women’ (14 October 2025) <https://crd.org/2025/10/14/kyrgyzstan-proposal-to-reinstate-the-death-penalty-violates-human-rights-obligations-and-fails-to-protect-women/&gt; accessed 2 May 2026.

^[3] Iurie Patricheev, ‘The Slow Death of Human Rights: Why Restoring the Death Penalty Would Put Kyrgyzstan in Breach of International Law’, Verfassungsblog (21 October 2025) <https://verfassungsblog.de/kyrgyzstan-death-penalty/&gt; accessed 2 May 2026.

^[4] Murat Karypov, ‘Reinstating the death penalty in the Constitution: Kyrgyzstan at a Constitutional Crossroads’, ConstitutionNet, International IDEA (29 December 2025) <https://constitutionnet.org/news/voices/reinstating-death-penalty-constitution-kyrgyzstan-constitutional-crossroads&gt; accessed 2 May 2026.

^[5] The Diplomat, ‘Death Penalty Reinstatement “Legally Impossible,” Kyrgyz Constitutional Court Says’ (11 December 2025) <https://thediplomat.com/2025/12/death-penalty-reinstatement-legally-impossible-kyrgyz-constitutional-court-says/&gt; accessed 2 May 2026.

^[6] International Commission of Jurists, ‘Kyrgyz Republic: ICJ welcomes Constitutional Court ruling blocking reintroduction of the death penalty’ (23 December 2025) <https://www.icj.org/kyrgyz-republic-icj-welcomes-constitutional-court-ruling-blocking-reintroduction-of-the-death-penalty/&gt; accessed 2 May 2026.

^[7] Civil Rights Defenders (n 2); see also UN Human Rights (n 1).

^[8] Civil Rights Defenders (n 2).

^[9] UN Human Rights (n 1).

^[10] Human Rights Watch, ‘Kyrgyzstan: Parliament Weakens Torture Protection, Media Freedom’ (27 June 2025) <https://www.hrw.org/news/2025/06/27/kyrgyzstan-parliament-weakens-torture-protection-media-freedo&gt;

^[11] UN Human Rights, ‘Kyrgyzstan: Torture prevention seriously undermined by new law, UN Human Rights Chief warns’ (OHCHR, 24 September 2025) <https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2025/09/kyrgyzstan-torture-prevention-seriously-undermined-new-law-un-human-rights&gt;

^[12] Library of Congress, Global Legal Monitor, ‘Kyrgyzstan: New Rules Imposed on Foreign Non-Governmental Organizations’ (12 August 2024) <https://www.loc.gov/item/global-legal-monitor/2024-08-12/kyrgyzstan-new-rules-imposed-on-foreign-non-governmental-organizations/&gt;

^[13] UN Human Rights, ‘Kyrgyzstan: Shifting from death penalty debate to preventing gender-based violence’ (OHCHR, 24 March 2026) https://www.ohchr.org/en/stories/2026/03/kyrgyzstan-shifting-death-penalty-debate-preventing-gender-based-violence 

^[14] Ibid

^[15]  Human Rights Watch, ‘World Report 2026: Kyrgyzstan’ (Human Rights Watch, 2026) https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2026/country-chapters/kyrgyzstan

^[16] Ibid

^[17]CABAR.asia, ‘The women keep being killed. Why does Kyrgyzstan not recognize femicide at the legislative level?’ (CABAR.asia, 4 April 2024) https://cabar.asia/en/the-women-keep-being-killed-why-does-kyrgyzstan-not-recognize-femicide-at-the-legislative-level

^[18] UN Human Rights, ‘Kyrgyzstan: Shifting from death penalty debate to preventing gender-based violence’ (OHCHR, 25 March 2026) <https://www.ohchr.org/en/stories/2026/03/kyrgyzstan-shifting-death-penalty-debate-preventing-gender-based-violence&gt;

^[19] Patricheev (n 3); Civil Rights Defenders (n 2).

^[20] Civil Rights Defenders (n 2).

^[21] UN Human Rights (n 10).