Kyrgyz President Returns Bill On Exonerating Victims Of Soviet-Era Repressions To Lawmakers

Kyrgyz President Sadyr Japarov has refused to sign a bill into law that would exonerate victims of Soviet-era repressions. The Kyrgyz parliament's website says Japarov returned the bill to lawmakers for additional debate, saying that the state will be unable to pay monthly allowances called for in the bill for some 18,000 Kyrgyz victims of Soviet terror from 1918 to 1953 and their descendants. Lawmakers approved the bill in late June. According to the Memorial rights group in Russia, at least 12 million men and women were persecuted during Josef Stalin's Great Terror in the 1930s alone, of whom more than 1 million people were executed. To read the original story by RFE/RL's Kyrgyz Service, click here.