A Kyrgyzstani prisoner with stitched up lips in Bishkek on Jan. 26, 2012. More than 400 inmates in two prisons in the Central Asian country sewed their mouths shut in protest at the conditions inside Kyrgyzstan's jails, according to prison service authorities in the ex-Soviet nation. Hunger strikes and other protests have been ongoing since the middle of January, when local prison authorities enacted stricter rules in the country's infamously squalid and overpopulated detention centres.