Reports of torture or other ill-treatment continued unabated. Dozens of members of
minority religious and Islamic groups were given long prison terms after unfair trials.
Human rights defenders continued to be imprisoned after unfair trials. The authorities
forcefully rejected all international calls for an independent, international investigation
into the mass killings of protesters.
Despite assertions by the authorities that the practice of torture had significantly
decreased, reports of torture or other ill-treatment of detainees and prisoners continued
unabated. In most cases, the authorities failed to conduct prompt, thorough and impartial
investigations into these allegations.
Several thousand people convicted of involvement with Islamist parties or Islamic
movements banned in Uzbekistan, as well as government critics and political opponents,
continued to serve long prison terms under conditions that amounted to cruel, inhuman
and degrading treatment.
Uzbekistan again refused to allow the UN Special Rapporteur on torture to visit the
country despite renewed requests.
In June, the authorities released opposition politician Sanzhar Umarov on humanitarian
grounds and allowed him to rejoin his family in the USA. Sanzhar Umarov had been sentenced
to eight years in prison in 2006 on charges of fraud and embezzlement after an unfair
trial. His supporters claimed the charges were politically motivated. In September,
he described in the New York Times how he had spent months in solitary confinement in small concrete punishment cells
with little natural light and no heating. He reported being beaten by prison guards
and other prisoners and being denied medical treatment.
The European Court of Human Rights ruled on 10 June in the case Garayev v. Azerbaijan that the extradition of Shaig Garayev from Azerbaijan to Uzbekistan would violate
the prohibition of torture under the European Convention on Human Rights. The court
stated that “any criminal suspect held in custody [in Uzbekistan] faces a serious
risk of being subjected to torture or inhuman or degrading treatment”.
Closed trials started in January of nearly 70 defendants charged in relation to attacks
in the Ferghana Valley and the capital, Tashkent, in May and August 2009 and the killings
of a pro-government imam and a high-ranking police officer in Tashkent in July 2009.
The authorities blamed the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), the Islamic Jihad
Union (IJU) and the Islamist Hizb-ut-Tahrir party, all banned in Uzbekistan, for the
attacks and killings. Among the scores detained as suspected members or sympathizers
of the IMU, the IJU and Hizb-ut-Tahrir in 2009 were people who attended unregistered
mosques, studied under independent imams, had travelled abroad, or were suspected
of affiliation to banned Islamic groups. Many were believed to have been detained
without charge or trial for lengthy periods. There were reports of torture and unfair
trials.
In April, a court in Dzhizzakh sentenced 25 men to terms ranging between two and
10 years in prison in connection with the attacks in 2009. All were convicted of attempting
to overthrow the constitutional order and of religious extremism. At least 12 of the
men alleged in court that their confessions had been obtained under torture. The trial
judge ordered an investigation into these allegations, and then declared they were
unfounded. Independent observers reported that the men had admitted to having participated
in prayer meetings and practised sports together, but had denied that they were part
of a group intent on overthrowing the constitutional order.
In April, Kashkadaria Regional Criminal Court sentenced Zulkhumor Khamdamova, her
sister Mekhriniso Khamdamova and their relative, Shakhlo Pakhmatova, to between six
and a half and seven years in prison for attempting to overthrow the constitutional
order and posing a threat to public order. They were part of a group of more than
30 women detained by security forces in counter-terrorism operations in the city of
Karshi in November 2009. They were believed to have attended religious classes taught
by Zulkhumor Khamdamova in one of the local mosques. The authorities accused Zulkhumor
Khamdamova of organizing an illegal religious group, a charge denied by her supporters.
Human rights defenders reported that the women were ill-treated in custody; police
officers allegedly stripped the women naked and threatened them with rape.
Dilorom Abdukadirova, an Uzbek refugee who had fled the country following the violence
in Andizhan in 2005, was detained for four days upon her return in January, after
receiving assurances from the authorities that she would not face charges. In March,
she was detained again and held in police custody for two weeks without access to
a lawyer or her family. On 30 April, she was convicted of anti-constitutional activities
relating to her participation in the Andizhan demonstrations as well as illegally
exiting and entering the country. She was sentenced to 10 years and two months in
prison after an unfair trial. Family members reported that she appeared emaciated
at the trial and had bruises on her face.
Human rights defenders and independent journalists were subjected to harassment, beatings,
detention and unfair trials. Human rights activists and journalists were summoned
for police questioning, placed under house arrest and routinely monitored by uniformed
or plain-clothes officers. Others reported being beaten by police officers or by people
suspected of working for the security forces.
In January 2010, Umida Ahmedova, a prominent Uzbekistani documentary photographer
was sentenced to three years in prison for insulting the dignity of Uzbekistani citizens
and damaging the country’s image on account of photographic and video projects documenting
poverty and gender inequality in Uzbekistan. However, the presiding judge gave her
an amnesty and she was released from the courtroom. Her continuing appeal against
her sentence was rejected in May.
In October, courts in Tashkent convicted two independent journalists working for foreign
media outlets of criminal defamation and sentenced them to large fines. Vladimir Berezovski,
the correspondent of Russian newspaper Parlamentskaia Gazeta, was accused of publishing 16 articles on the independent website Vesti.uz which
contained defamatory information intended to mislead the Uzbekistani people and could
have created panic. The articles focused on the IMU and labour migration and were
not authored by Vladimir Berezovski but re-posted from Russian news agencies. Abdumalik
Boboev, the correspondent for the US Congress-funded Voice of America Radio Station
was sentenced to a large fine. The court found that his print and radio materials
insulted the judiciary and the security forces. His articles and reports covered restrictions
on freedom of expression, arbitrary detentions and unfair trials of journalists and
human rights defenders. Both journalists had their appeals against their sentences
rejected.
In December, the authorities conditionally released human rights defender Fakhad Mukhtarov,
after he had served 11 months of a five-year sentence for bribery and fraud. At least
11 other human rights defenders continued to be imprisoned. Some had new charges brought
against them for allegedly violating prison rules and had their sentences extended
by several years following unfair secret trials. At least three further human rights
defenders were sentenced to long prison terms in 2010 on allegedly fictitious charges
brought to punish them for their work.
In January, human rights defender Gaibullo Dzhalilov was sentenced to nine years in
prison for attempting to overthrow the constitutional order and membership of a banned
religious organization. A member of the unregistered, independent Human Rights Society
of Uzbekistan, Gaibullo Dzhalilov had been monitoring the detentions and trials of
members or suspected members of Islamic movements banned in Uzbekistan and had raised
allegations of torture or other ill-treatment. Gaibullo Dzhalilov claimed that he
had been forced under duress to confess to being a member of Hizb-ut-Tahrir. His sentence
was upheld on appeal in March. In August, new charges were brought against him based,
according to the prosecution, on new eyewitness testimony placing him at religious
gatherings during which DVDs with extremist religious content were shown. He was sentenced
to an additional four years in prison during a closed hearing at Kashkadaria Regional
Criminal Court, even though no prosecution witnesses were called.
The government continued its strict control over religious communities, compromising
the enjoyment of their right to freedom of religion. Those most affected were members
of unregistered groups such as Christian Evangelical congregations and Muslims worshipping
in mosques outside state control.
Suspected followers of the Turkish Muslim theologian, Said Nursi, were convicted in
a series of trials that had begun in 2009 and continued into 2010. The charges against
them included membership or creation of an illegal religious extremist organization
and publishing or distributing materials threatening the social order. By December
2010, at least 114 men had been sentenced to prison terms of between six and 12 years
following unfair trials. Reportedly, some of the verdicts were based on confessions
gained under torture in pre-trial detention; defence and expert witnesses were not
called; access to the trials was in some cases obstructed while other trials were
closed.
The authorities briefly granted temporary shelter to tens of thousands of ethnic Uzbek
refugees who fled violence in neighbouring southern Kyrgyzstan in June. The authorities
allowed emergency teams from UNHCR, the UN refugee agency, access to Uzbekistan and
the refugee camps, the first time since ordering the agency to leave the country in
2006. Security forces tightly controlled the movement of the refugees, including those
injured and in hospitals, and their contact with the outside world. At the end of
June all but a couple of thousand refugees returned to Kyrgyzstan amid concern that
the returns were not genuinely voluntary and that Kyrgyzstani and Uzbekistani local
authorities had put pressure on them.
Five years after the killing of hundreds of mainly peaceful demonstrators by the security
forces in Andizhan on 13 May 2005, the authorities continued to reject all calls for
an independent, international investigation. The lifting of sanctions by the EU was
cited as evidence that the matter was now closed.
At the UN Human Rights Committee’s examination of Uzbekistan’s implementation of the
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights in March, the Uzbekistani delegation
denied that human rights defenders were detained and persecuted. The delegation insisted
that Uzbekistan’s “enemies” were waging an “information war” against the country and
that international NGOs were paid to spread defamation and disinformation.
