The Registration System and Panopticism

5.2.3 The Registration System and Panopticism

As mentioned before, the actual purpose of the registration system, justified by the standards of OSCE, is to record the place of residency of citizens by state, in order to be able to contact them, to plan the infrastructure and allocate resources. However the recording of the place of living also brings a certain degree of surveillance as the state is able to collect information on its citizens. If someone has committed a crime, s(he) can easily be traced if the place of residence is known. During discussions with officials, most of them justified the existence of the registration system through the necessity of control which can be provided with it. Hence, Panopticism (Foucault, 1977) is reproduced through the registration system, if it is implemented correctly. However, this thesis already g ave insight to the fact that many internal migrants don’t register in Osh. This fact decreases the effect of Panopticism, which is a main attribute of the exercise of disciplinary power.

Thus it can be stated that the widespread lack of registration hinders the exercise of power through discipline. According to the concept of disciplinary power of Foucault (1977), the power of the state is reproduced through disciplinary practices of society. In the case of the registration system, the practices of disciplinary power are lacking through the high number of internal migrants who don’t register. In this chapter it should be revealed how state handles this absent of disciplinary power again through surveillance and supervision, i.e. through the control of the registration of internal migrants.

5.2.3.1 Legal Consequences of Living without Registration

In compliance with the law, every citizen in Kyrgyzstan should be registered in his place of residence. Consequently, if somebody is caught without a registration in Osh, but living there, (s)he could be fined for that. The interviews provide insight how strict the implementation of that law takes place.

According to the ministry of internal affairs, the passport regime seems to be rather strictly and the police hands out numerous punishments to internal migrants who have no registration in Osh. Since this year, they checked the passports of 126’366 where 3’899 had no registration. The fine for not being registered is 50 Som for Kyrgyz if there is no permanent registration in the place of residence, and 100 Som if the temporal registration is expired. Foreigners pay 500 Som for the first time and 1000 Som for the second time they are caught without registration. The third time they would be deported. According to the interviewed boss of the ministry, the sum of the fines the police collected through passport control until July in 2013 already would be 449’130 Som.

“Not having propiska it is also administrative fine can be done towards that person, because one is violating the administrative rule for the city and militia police can stop you and you will be fined and then you will get your punishment taken into police station.” (Representative of Advocacy Centre for Human Rights, Osh 2013)

The interviewed representatives of organizations confirmed that somebody can be punished if he isn’t registered in his place of residence. From FVLWB the researcher heard that, because many people don’t know their rights, the police sometimes asks for more than 50 Som or even arrest people for a couple of hours. But in a second interview they specified that controls are rather rare. The interviews with the internal migrants confirm this statement. According to the interviewed migrants in Osh, there are hardly any controls of the registration through the police. Despite the fact that on the bazar of Osh the vast majority of the merchants are coming from the village and live in Osh without registration, they seldom experienced controls where they were asked to show their registration.

R: “Did you hear about that here in the bazar, the militia checks the documents sometimes?” I: “No, I never heard about it. I think no one is checking.” (Jazgul, Osh 2013)

None of the interviewed migrants even knew the height of the fine for the absence of registration.

A few interviewed people were controlled, but they didn’t face problems after they explained that they are tenants in Osh and registered in their place of origin.

The only place where the researcher heard about many controls is Kara-Suu Bazar – it’s a bazar located near Osh and is considered to be the biggest bazar in the South of Kyrgyzstan. There the merchants, who rent a container, are frequently controlled and have to show all their documents for the stand, and their registration as well. But nevertheless, people there neither knew about the height of the fine.

During and after the conflict situation in 2010, there seemed to be an exceptional situation. Some of the interviewed migrants told about controls of registration through the police. One migrant even reported that they came home to their place of living and wanted to see the registration as well as the property documents.

There was also no evidence coming out of the interviews that employees can be fined if they hire a person without registration. All the asked interviewees negated that. Also for house owners who allow people without registration to reside in their house, the researcher never heard about a case during the field research where someone was fined for that. According to the boss of the department of public security, shop owners should have all the required documents for the workers, but it wouldn’t happen often that a shop gets closed because of missing documents. However he stated that in compliance with the law, these house owners should be fined. Sometimes the police would check these houses. In his opinion, the house owners usually tell the police about new tenants, and also inform the tax department. After they are informed by the house owner about a new tenant, they would visit them and check their registration. Other houses they would just check upon call e.g. because of noise complaints of neighbours. If the tenant of the checked house isn’t registered, the house owner will be fined. The FVLWB also told about house owners w ho can be fined, but more because they don’t pay taxes, what certainly is connected with not registering the tenant.

As discussed above, control through the police, in accordance with the concept of disciplinary power of Foucault (1977), could encourage people to act according to the law as they would always fear to be punished by not doing so. According to the law, they have to register in Osh, so more people would register. However the results of the study show that controls of the registration aren’t wid espread in Osh. People don’t fear to be controlled as some of them never heard about control. Thus it can be concluded that state doesn’t enforce the practice of internal migrants to register and therefore their control practices don’t fight the fact that many people don’t register. This again weakens the disciplinary power, through which again, according to Brown (1995), social control and the domination of state over society is weakened.

5.2.3.2 Importance of Compliance with the Law for Internal Migrants

The lack of control let assume that the importance for internal migrants to register and therefore to comply with the law is quite marginal. According to Foucault, supervision and surveillance are necessary to encourage the population to act disciplinarily and to follow the law, because through this control, the fear of punishment is reproduced. Since internal migrants who aren’t registered in Osh don’t have to fear punishment due to the lack of control, they don’t have a stimulus to act according to the law. However, some of the interviewees argued that it is necessary to be registered in the place of residence in order to follow the law:

“If you have propiska, you are a legal person. If you have no propiska and live here, you are like a spy. […] Where you live, you have to get propiska in that place” (Jibek, Osh 2013)

Even if that woman didn’t have a registration in Osh by herself, she emphasized the importance to have a registration in order to follow the law. That means that she consider herself as somebody

who act against the law without a registration. One person who has a temporal registration in Osh answered to the question why he registered himself in following way:

“According to the law everywhere you have to register even temporal. […] Every citizen should follow the law and get even temporal propiska” (Bahodir, Osh 201о)

There were some other statements in that direction, but for most interviewed migrants the compliance with the law didn’t seem to be an important reason to register in Osh. Even though

the re were migrants who argued in the other direction: They thought it isn’t important where somebody is registered in Kyrgyzstan.