The protest is an escalation of a two-week-old hunger strike involving most of the country’s 7,500 inmates, triggered by a special forces raid of a jail in the capital Bishkek.
Prison service officials said the special unit was sent in to quell a riot by prisoners who vandalized their cells and cut their hands and stomachs during a search by guards.
They said guards had been conducting a search of Detention Center No. 1 as part of a crackdown on smuggling and illegal dealing in prison. Inmates organized a nationwide hunger strike - assisted by mobile telephones smuggled into their cells.
The hunger strikers have demanded the resignation of the national prison service head and the manager of the detention center where the protest began.
Around 6,400 prisoners were on hunger strike and 1,175 had sewn their mouths closed, although more than 200 later appealed for medical help to remove the stitches, prison service spokeswoman Eleonora Sharshenaliyeva said on Friday.
Prison riots occur periodically in the former Soviet republics of Central Asia. Police in neighboring Kazakhstan foiled an attempted jailbreak last July. As special forces stormed a penal colony to quell the unrest, an explosion occurred killing six people.
Several inmates were killed during prison riots in Kyrgyzstan in 2005.
An impoverished country of 5.5 million people that hosts both US and Russian military air bases, Kyrgyzstan overthrew its president in April 2010 and was the scene of bloody clashes between ethnic Kyrgyz and Uzbeks two months later.
Nearly 7,600 inmates are incarcerated in Kyrgyz prisons, while a further 7,000 convicted of minor offenses are confined to their home region and required to check in daily with police.
