Web pages about "Uzbekistan"

Activist released in Uzbekistan

Thu, 05 Jun 2008 12:05:53 +0100

Uzbekistani human rights defender Mutabar Tadzhibaeva, who was sentenced to eight years in prison in 2006, was unexpectedly released on Monday, 2 June.

The prisoner of conscience, who won the 2008 Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders last month, was driven to her home in Margilan and reunited with her family. Tadzhibaeva passed her thanks to NGOs including Amnesty International, which had campaigned for her release.

"I spent 900 days on a "torture island"; 700 of those days I spent in solitary confinement," she revealed. "I endured only because of the support of people who were concerned about my fate. Only this gave me strength. I want to thank them for not forgetting those nearest and dearest to me - that knowledge helped me remain determined."

Mutabar Tadzhibaeva was detained on 7 October 2005, on the eve of an international conference on human rights defenders in Dublin, Ireland, which she was due to attend. She had come under increasing pressure from the authorities for her human rights activities, including for speaking out about the government's crackdown on human rights activities since the May 2005 mass killings in Andizhan.

On 6 March 2007, she was sentenced to eight years' imprisonment. She faced 13 economic and political charges, including "membership of an illegal organization" and "using funds from Western governments to prepare or distribute materials containing a threat to public order and security".

According to Mutabar Tadzhibaeva's oldest brother, she did not know that she was being released, but instead thought she was being taken for medical tests to a hospital in Tashkent. Mutabar's brother told the independent uznews.net website that his sister looked pale and had lost weight, but that emotionally she was fine.

Tadzhibaeva's release was hailed by her colleagues, with human rights activists citing the release as the result of international pressure. The remaining six years of her eight-year sentence have been commuted to a three-year suspended sentence.

Uzbekistan abolishes the death penalty

Fri, 11 Jan 2008 11:59:06 +0000

The trend towards total abolition of the death penalty has continued with Uzbekistan becoming the latest country to put an end to executions.

From 1 January 2008, it becomes the 135th country in the world to abolish the death penalty in law or practice. Capital punishment has now been replaced with life or long-term imprisonment. Amnesty International welcomes this move towards ending this cruel and inhumane practice.

There is concern that, prior to the abolition of the death penalty, relatives of executed prisoners were not informed about the dates and places of their execution and burial.

Amnesty International urges the authorities of Uzbekistan to honour its commitment as a member of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) to “make available to the public information regarding the use of the death penalty”. They should ensure that the families of those executed receive full access to such information and be allowed to collect the executed prisoners’ personal effects.

Amnesty International calls on the few remaining territories in the former Soviet Union which retain the death penalty to fully abolish it, thus making the whole region a death penalty-free zone. The only remaining executioner in Europe is Belarus, where the last reported execution took place in December 2007.

Uzbekistan: The government should ensure the implementation of the recommendations of the UN Committee against Torture

Fri, 07 Dec 2007 16:13:34 +0000

Amnesty International is urging the government of Uzbekistan to take effective action to implement in practice the recommendations of the United Nations (UN) Committee against Torture (CAT), which published its concluding observations and recommendations on 23 November 2007. These were issued following the CAT’s examination on 9 and 11 November of Uzbekistan’s third periodic report setting out the country’s compliance with the UN Convention against Torture and Uzbekistan’s written replies to a list of issues raised by the CAT at its pre-session in May.

In its conclusions the CAT reiterated its concern at the “numerous ongoing and consistent allegations concerning routine torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment [...]” and regretted the “failure to conduct prompt and impartial investigations into such allegations [...]”, both concerns shared by Amnesty International over a long period of time.

More concrete and positive actions such as the introduction of habeas corpus (judicial supervision of detention) and the abolition of the death penalty -- which will enter into legal force on 1 January 2008 and which the CAT has welcomed - are urgently needed to safeguard the rights of Uzbekistani citizens and offer them protection from the arbitrary actions of law enforcement and other state officials.

Even though laws enacted by the authorities safeguard the rights of detainees, internal regulations left it to the discretion of individual law enforcement officials as to whether detainees were allowed access to a lawyer of their choice, family members and medical practitioners. The Committee was “concerned that these rules create conditions where abusive practices are sanctioned”. A pertinent example of such abusive practices is the reported beating in detention at the end of November this year of Ikhtior Khamroev, who is serving a three-year prison term for hooliganism. He is the son of human rights defender Bakhrom Khamroev, who was told by other prisoners that Ikhtior had been severely beaten by prison guards and had also suffered stab wounds, although the circumstances were not clear. The prisoners claimed that he received no medical treatment and was locked up in a punishment cell. The prison director has refused to give information about Ikhtior Khamroev’s state of health and his exact whereabouts. He has not allowed Bakhrom Khamroev or a legal representative to visit Ikhtior. The absence in practice of a fully independent system for monitoring detention facilities compounds the difficulties of investigating allegations of ill-treatment such as this and adds to the distress of relatives. Amnesty International is urging the authorities to ensure that in practice all places of detention are monitored by independent national and international organizations without restrictions so that allegations of torture or other ill-treatment are investigated promptly and impartially.

Amnesty International welcomes the CAT’s call to Uzbekistan to “apply a zero-tolerance approach to the continuing problem of torture, and to the practice of impunity” and its exhortation to the authorities to “publicly and unambiguously condemn practices of torture in all its forms”. Despite repeated assurances that the government is taking necessary measures to combat torture Amnesty International is not aware of any outright and absolute public condemnation of torture by the highest authorities in Uzbekistan, as recommended by the UN Special Rapporteur on torture in 2003.

In the light of the Uzbekistani authorities’ continued refusal to allow an independent international investigation into the mass killings in Andizhan in May 2005 Amnesty International was greatly encouraged by the Committee’s urgent recommendation that the Uzbekistani authorities “should take effective measures to […] institute a full, effective, impartial inquiry into the May 2005 events” and that “[i]n accordance with the recommendations of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and others, […]credible, independent experts conduct this inquiry” . The Committee also expressed concern that the authorities “ha[d] limited and obstructed independent monitoring of human rights in the aftermath of these events, thereby further impairing the ability to obtain a reliable or credible assessment of the reported abuses, including ascertaining information on the whereabouts and reported torture or ill-treatment of persons detained and/or missing.”

Background

Prior to the CAT’s examination of Uzbekistan’s third periodic report Amnesty International had written to the Committee pointing out that many of the concerns raised by the Committee in 2002 following Uzbekistan’s second periodic report were still relevant and pressing and that many of the Committee’s recommendations were yet to be implemented in practice.

In addition, Amnesty International drew the Committee’s attention to some of its concerns relating to the May 2005 Andizhan events, when hundreds of people, including women and children, were killed after security forces opened fire on mostly peaceful demonstrators. Several hundred people, including human rights activists, were sentenced to long prison terms for their alleged involvement in the Andizhan events, the vast majority after closed or secret trials. There were allegations that some of those charged were subjected to torture or other ill-treatment in pre-trial detention. The authorities have continued to reject calls for an independent international investigation into the Andizhan events and have insisted that two rounds of expert talks under the auspices of the European Union which took place in December 2006 and April 2007 constituted an international investigation. Although Amnesty International welcomed the expert talks it holds the view that such an initiative cannot substitute an independent international investigation into the Andizhan events. The expert talks did not meet international standards for an effective, independent and impartial investigation, including the UN Principles on the effective prevention and investigation of extra-legal arbitrary and summary executions

Russia extradites, Uzbekistan abuses

Thu, 01 Nov 2007 17:25:45 +0000

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, co-operation between former members, Russia and Uzbekistan, has been increasingly influenced by concerns about regional security and the "war on terror".

Amnesty International (AI) has documented numerous cases of people who have been forcibly returned to Uzbekistan from Russia as alleged members of banned Islamic groups. These people have then been held in incommunicado detention, tortured and otherwise ill-treated, convicted after unfair trials and sometimes sentenced to lengthy prison terms or death.

The Uzbekistani authorities continue to make extradition requests for those they suspect of involvement in the Andizhan events in May 2005. Hundreds of people were killed when security forces fired on mainly peaceful demonstrators. Such extraditions demonstrate that the Russian government is disregarding its obligations under international law not to return anyone to a country where they would be at risk of serious human rights violations.

Interview with Russian human rights activist Elena Riabinina
Rustam Muminov, an Uzbekistani who lived in the Russian Federation since 2000, was forcibly deported from the country in October 2006. He was deported despite the fact that he had applied for refugee status with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and that the General Prosecutor of the Russian Federation had in September 2006 decided he could not be extradited to Uzbekistan.

The case received wide media coverage and was the focus of campaigning by AI and others. It is perhaps due to this attention that criminal charges were brought against the head of the Moscow detention centre for foreigners, where Rustam Muminov was kept prior to being deported. In May 2007, he was found guilty of exceeding official powers when he allowed the deportation to go ahead. However, by that time, Rustam Muminov had already been sentenced to five-and-a-half years of imprisonment in Uzbekistan.

AI has recently learned about further cases of possible forcible return to Uzbekistan. Dilshod Kurbanov and Mukhamadsolikh Matiakubovich Abutov are both held in detention in Russia awaiting decisions on their status.

Dilshod Kurbanov has lived in the Russian Federation since 2003. He was detained on 30 May in the Tula Region of the Russian Federation and was taken to the Police Department for organized crimes. He is now being held in a pre-trial detention centre in the city of Novomoskovskoe 2. He had recently applied for recognition as a refugee to the UNHCR, which has not yet reached a decision.

Dilshod Kurbanov says he was persecuted in Uzbekistan because of his devout religious beliefs. He was questioned by police on several occasions about members of the banned Islamic party Hizb-ut-Tahrir. He says that, in 2002, he learned that his name was on a police list of alleged terrorists. When he was told that police had gone to his parents’ house, to take him away for questioning, he decided to leave the country for Russia.

Mukhamadsolikh Matiakubovich Abutov's house in Uzbekistan was searched in January 2007 and the police took away religious literature in order to check it for “extremist content”. Mukhamadsolikh Abutov had been imprisoned in Uzbekistan in the 1990s on what he says were fabricated charges. Fearing he would again be denied a fair trial and imprisoned, he left Uzbekistan for Russia in February.

Before he could approach the authorities to seek protection as a refugee, he was detained by what seem to have been members of the Uzbekistani Security Service on 13 June outside his apartment in Krasnogorsk, Moscow Region, and handed over to the local police department. He applied for refugee status with the UNHCR, but the police refused to hand over his application.

On 26 June, the city court in Krasnogorsk ordered his detention to continue, so that he could be deported to Uzbekistan. He was transferred to a pre-trial detention centre in the town of Mozhaisk, in the Moscow Region, the following day from where he was able to apply for asylum in the Russian Federation. No decision on his status has yet been taken.

AI is concerned that, despite overwhelming evidence that torture is systematic in Uzbekistan, the Russian authorities have claimed on several occasions that civil rights are protected in Uzbekistan. AI strongly condemns any state action that seeks to undermine the basic principles of international refugee protection.

Press Freedom: Journalists in need of protection

Wed, 03 May 2006 17:45:57 +0100

Since the beginning of the war in Iraq in March 2003, more journalists have been killed in that country than anywhere else in the world. The situation faced by journalists attempting to cover the events in that country highlight the need for greater international efforts to protect journalists in conflict situations.

Journalists fulfil a special role in conflict situations, providing details of incidents that parties to the conflict would sometimes prefer remained unknown by the general public.

In the first year of the conflict, journalists were primarily killed by US or Iraqi forces, usually reported as having been caught in the crossfire or accidentally shot, though journalists' organisations have charged that some of the attacks looked like deliberate targeting. The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) said on 8 March 2006, the third anniversary of the US attack on Baghdad’s Palestine Hotel, that more than 100 journalists and media staff have lost their lives.

“...In many of these cases we still do not have concrete answers to hard questions about who is responsible and what happened,” said Aidan White, IFJ General Secretary.

In a recent case, the IFJ reports that Mahmoud Za'al, 35, a cameraman and reporter for the Iraqi television station Baghdad TV was shot on 24 January 2006 in Ramadi, while working on a social documentary. According to local reports, Mahmoud Za’al was allegedly shot in a cross-fire between US forces and insurgents.

Since 2004, however, both local and international journalists have increasingly been targeted by armed groups as part of their campaigns. Many local journalists are targeted because they work for foreign media and are accused of collaboration, while foreign journalists have been kidnapped and murdered in an attempt to put pressure on the foreign troops in the country.

Female journalists are among those targeted by armed groups. In February, a well-known correspondent for Al-Arabiya television and two members of her crew in Iraq were kidnapped and killed. Police found the bodies of reporter Atwar Bahjat, her cameraman Adnan Khairallah and soundman Khaled Mohsen on the outskirts of Samarra.

The IFJ has been campaigning for a similar level of protection as granted to humanitarian workers and UN staff in August 2003 to be extended to journalists in conflict situations. The organisation presented text for a suggested resolution of the Security Council to UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan, at the World Electronic Media Forum during the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) in Tunisian, 16 November, 2005.

Amnesty International (AI) agrees that international measures must be put in place to protect journalists in conflict. AI calls on the incoming members of the Security Council to adopt measures that seek to prevent these attacks and hold those who carry them out accountable for their actions.

However, it is not just in conflict situations that journalists need protection. Across the world, in a range of different situations, journalists are attacked, imprisoned and forced into self-censorship by repressive governments. The common element in all of these is the unwillingness of some governments to allow alternative voices to emerge and, in many cases, a fear that journalists will expose abuses they have tried to keep quiet.

In Uzbekistan, journalists who have tried to publicise the killings in Andizhan last May have been threatened, assaulted, detained and forcibly confined to their homes. The "war on terror" is used as a pretext for tightening restrictions on freedom of expression. The situation has become so bad that, following the closure of several independent foreign media outlets, the BBC closed its Uzbekistan office last October due to the increased harassment of its staff by the authorities.

The "war on terror" has also been invoked in Pakistan to restrict journalists. Journalists have been denied permission to cover events in the tribal areas of the country where the army is engaged in operations against those linked to al-Qa'ida and the Taleban. Across the country, journalists covering the "war on terror" have been harassed, arbitrarily arrested. Some have "disappeared" for some length of time.

In one such case, journalist Hayatullah Khan was abducted by armed men on his way to cover a protest rally in Mirali Bazaar, North Waziristan, against a missile attack four days earlier. He is now thought to be detained, possibly having been handed over to US agencies, but his detention has not been acknowledged and his whereabouts remain unknown.

In Colombia, the continuing armed conflict, which the government sometimes describes as a "fight against terrorism", has, in some cases been used as a pretext to intimidate journalists who, along with trade unionists and social activists, are targeted by both army-backed paramilitaries and the armed opposition groups.

Members of the security forces and government officials have sought to stigmatize some journalists who expose human rights violations by associating them with the armed opposition groups, thus placing them at risk of attack by paramilitary forces. They are under particular threat in the run-up to the Presidential elections on 28 May.

In Lebanon, following the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafiq al-Hariri in February 2005 and the subsequent withdrawal of Syrian troops, several prominent journalists who had spoken out against Syrian practices were killed or seriously injured by bombs placed under their cars. Samir Qasir and Gibran Tueni MP, a senior journalist with and the editor of the daily al-Nahar respectively, were killed in June and December 2005. May Chidiac, a presenter with LBC television, lost an arm and a leg in a bomb attack against her in September 2005.

Journalists in Kenya have also found themselves targeted in a pattern of increased intimidation and harassment by the government. In March this year, the Information and Communications Minister Mutahi Kagwe and Government Spokesman Alfred Mutua warned the media of stern government action if the persisted in what was described as "misreporting and misrepresentation".

In one of a series of incidents, two groups of hooded armed people with gas masks staged simultaneous raids early on 2 March on the editorial offices of the Kenya Television Network and the Standard Group's printing press in Nairobi. They disabled broadcasting equipment, burnt thousands of copies of newspapers and removed computer equipment.

States have a duty to protect journalists and not to persecute them in an effort to control the free flow of information. A free media is not only beneficial, but necessary in a free society. By exposing human rights abuses and giving voice to marginalised parts of the community, the media can at its best encourage the proper application of justice and stimulate debates that can defuse situations that might otherwise lead to conflict. When faced with unjust restrictions and the threat of attack, self-censorship in the media can have the opposite effect, aiding the covering up of abuses and fostering frustration in marginalised communities.

International recognition of the importance of journalists and the need for them to work free from unjust restrictions and the threat of violence will help to put pressure on those states who seek to control the media. Journalism matters and it is time for those who recognise the importance of a free media to try to change the minds of those who do not.

Other countries:
Rwanda
Restrictions on the freedom of the press remain in force, belying the government's claims that it is building an open society. Journalists who voice concern or criticize the state authorities are intimidated into silence or forced into self-censorship. The climate of impunity is perpetuated by the lack of substantive measures to bring to justice perpetrators of past human rights violations against journalists, including physical attacks, unlawful detention, intimidation and harassment.

Cuba
The government retains complete control over all media outlets and private ownership of press, radio, television and other means of communication is prohibited by law. Independent journalists face intimidation, harassment and imprisonment for their work. There are currently 72 prisoners of conscience on the island, 14 of whom are journalists.

Bangladesh
Several journalists engaged in defending human rights have had their fingers or hands deliberately damaged so they can no longer hold a pen. The attacks form part of a situation in which hundreds of human rights defenders have received death threats and been physically attacked. Successive governments have consistently failed to protect individuals at risk, investigate the abuses committed against them and bring the perpetrators to justice.

Egypt
Restrictions on freedom of expression, association and assembly persist. A Bill introduced by President Mubarak in February 2004 that would abolish imprisonment for publishing offences has not been made law. In the meantime, journalists continued to be threatened, beaten, fined for libel or imprisoned because of their work. Crews and journalists of international TV channels were also stopped and detained for hours in the run-up to the May 2005 referendum on multi-candidate presidential elections in an apparent attempt to prevent them from reporting on demonstrations or gatherings related to the referendum.

Turkey
Article 301 of the Turkish Penal Code, which prohibits "public denigration of Turkishness, the Republic or the Grand National Assembly of Turkey", violates the right to freedom of expression and is frequently used to prosecute journalists and others peacefully expressing their dissenting opinion. Amnesty International has been campaigning for the abolition of Article 301 in its entirety.

Control Arms Campaign: Tangible momentum and potential for real change

Fri, 12 Oct 2007 15:44:04 +0100

By Mary Robinson

On this 55th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, threats of new terrorist attacks and the dangers of weapons of mass destruction dominate the headlines.

But the real weapons of mass destruction go largely unnoticed by those of us who live far from conflict and war. Those weapons are the 639 million small arms in circulation, and at least 16 billion units of military ammunition produced every year – enough to shoot every man, woman and child on the planet twice.

Such figures on their own would mean little, if it were not for the fact that the easy availability of arms increases the incidence and impact of armed violence, and can trigger conflict and prolong wars once they break out.

During my five years as United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, I spent a huge proportion of my time meeting people who had been terrorized by armed violence.

I went to Colombia and met some of those caught in the crossfire. I witnessed the same in the Balkans, Sierra Leone, Cambodia and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Time and again, a tide of weapons fed the slaughter and kept the conflict going.

So where do the weapons used to deny people their most basic human rights come from?

According to the 2003 edition of the Small Arms Survey, 1,134 companies in at least 98 countries are involved in some aspect of small arms production. At least 30 countries are regarded as significant producers, with the United States and the Russian Federation dominating the global market. Between them, these two countries account for more than 70% of total worldwide production of civilian firearms. Russia and the US, together with the three other permanent members of the UN Security Council - France, UK and China - supply 88 per cent of the world’s arms.

As the survey points out, “The majority of countries involved in the small arms trade still fail to provide comprehensive official data on their annual arms exports and imports. A significant proportion of the global trade in small arms is conducted in secrecy, reinforcing an environment in which corruption and black markets thrive.”

The lack of data on the arms trade also makes it easy for many of the weapons traded legally to end up in the wrong hands. Almost all (80-90 percent) small arms start off in the legal sphere - they are manufactured legally and their initial trade is state-sanctioned. Yet many get into the wrong hands where they fuel conflict and abuse in the most unstable areas of the world.

Added to this significant problem, the situation has become worse since the terrible attacks in the United States on 11th September 2001. In the name of fighting a "war on terror", more arms have been supplied to regimes that have poor human rights records. Some of the recipients of increased US military aid are armed forces that have committed grave violations of human rights, and which the US state department itself has identified as being amongst the worst human rights violators.

In the year after the 11th September attacks, security assistance from the US to Uzbekistan, for example, increased by $45 million, despite the continuation of systematic human rights violations in the former Soviet state.

Several other countries, including the UK, have cleared for export increasing numbers of arms to countries in which human rights violations continue. For example, UK arms sales to Indonesia grew by 20 times from 2000 to 2002.

The displacement and deaths of millions of innocent civilians are not the only human rights consequences of such exports. Governments in countries at war are also much less able to meet long-term commitments to education, healthcare and housing - all of which are fundamental human rights.

Despite the deadly nature of the trade, there are currently no binding international laws to regulate the arms industry.

Over the last five years, the problem of the illicit proliferation of small arms has been recognized and there have been small steps towards international controls. The UN Program of Action on small arms and light weapons, adopted in July 2001, contains some positive provisions including measures to monitor progress on collection and destruction of arms. However, it does not mention human rights, makes few references to international humanitarian law, and doesn’t provide a mandate for creation of a binding law.

Responsibility for controlling the arms trade lies with all exporting and importing countries. As the world’s largest exporters of arms, the five permanent members of the UN Security Council must face up to their role in fuelling the conflicts that destroy people’s livelihoods and trap countries in a cycle of violence and poverty.

The need for strong action by Security Council members was highlighted by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan in his 2002 report to the Council. For example, he recommended that the Council support the development of an international weapons marking and tracing instrument and also mentioned the need to enhance transparency in armaments.

The urgently required international action, recognized by the United Nations, is the subject of a new Control Arms campaign, launched by Oxfam, Amnesty International and the International Action Network on Small Arms (IANSA).

The organizations have banded together to press for regulation in the form of an Arms Trade Treaty. The proposed treaty includes legally binding criteria based on existing international law, to stop the flow of arms to human rights abusers, repressive governments and criminals. Governments would be required not to sell arms where they would be used to violate human rights or international humanitarian law, at last injecting regulation into a dangerously unregulated trade.

Though the campaign was only launched two months ago, numerous governments from Macedonia to Mali, Cambodia to Costa Rica have all expressed their support for an Arms Trade Treaty. With key influential leaders such as President Lula of Brazil also backing the campaign, there is tangible momentum and potential for real change.

After World War Two, countries pledged support for the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in order to stop the “barbarous acts” that had outraged the world’s conscience. But atrocities continue and it is now time to control the arms fuelling these violations.

This can only be achieved by the creation of a new universal declaration – an Arms Trade Treaty.

Mary Robinson is a former President of Ireland and United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. She is now Honorary President of Oxfam International and heads the Ethical Globalization Initiative.