Uzbek Prison Amnesty Should Cover Dissidents
Uzbek Prison Amnesty Should Cover Dissidents
Human rights activists in Uzbekistan are still hoping that political prisoners will be released under a general amnesty.
On August 28, the Uzbek authorities announced that certain categories of convicts would be freed to mark the country’s independence day. Those to be freed include men over 60, women, adolescents, foreign nationals, disabled, and minor offenders who pose no danger to society. The releases will take place over the coming three months.
NBCentral Asia commentators fear that as in previous years, none of the dissidents, independent journalists and human rights activists now in jail will be deemed to have met the requirements.
“Such political prisoners as [dissident poet] Yusuf Juma, [journalists and human rights activists] Solijon Abdurahmonov, Aghzam Turghunov, and Dilmurod Sayid… won’t even be theoretically eligible for this amnesty,” said Umida Niazova, an Uzbek human rights expert now based in Berlin. “Our colleagues have been sentenced to lengthy terms for ‘grave crimes’, and for many it was not their first sentence.”
Regime critics are often convicted of offences that automatically exclude them from general amnesties, such as bribery, possession of drugs, and anti-state activities.
The Tashkent-based Initiative Group of Independent Human Rights Defenders believes there around 30 political prisoners in Uzbekistan.
Expert like Niazova say the international community needs to mobilise and apply various kinds of pressure on the Uzbek authorities to force them to take action. “Their release is a political issue,” she said.
A journalist and human rights advocate, Niazova herself spent three-and-a-half months in jail in Uzbekistan in 2007 before being released under amnesty.
Tashpulat Yoldashev, an Uzbek political analyst based abroad, doubts the government will see any reason to free its critics, even if some are technically eligible.
Mutabar Tajibayeva, who heads the Flaming Hearts human rights group in the eastern town of Fergana, dismisses general amnesties are mere window-dressing.
She too spent time in prison – three years – and was freed only under pressure from the international community. In her experience, prison governors are issued with lists of individuals who are not to be released, and deal with it by accusing them of breaking prison regulations, meaning they are not eligible for amnesty.
Before one amnesty in December 2005, she says, she found herself facing new 16 new criminal charges. Later on, she was accused of around 30 breaches of prison rules as she refused to write a plea for amnesty. She says she was only released because Tashkent obtained many millions dollars of assistance from the West.
(NBCentralAsia is an IWPR-funded project to create a multilingual news analysis and comment service for Central Asia, drawing on the expertise of a broad range of political observers across the region. The project ran from August 2006 to September 2007, covering all five regional states. With new funding, the service has resumed, covering Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan.)
On August 28, the Uzbek authorities announced that certain categories of convicts would be freed to mark the country’s independence day. Those to be freed include men over 60, women, adolescents, foreign nationals, disabled, and minor offenders who pose no danger to society. The releases will take place over the coming three months.
NBCentral Asia commentators fear that as in previous years, none of the dissidents, independent journalists and human rights activists now in jail will be deemed to have met the requirements.
“Such political prisoners as [dissident poet] Yusuf Juma, [journalists and human rights activists] Solijon Abdurahmonov, Aghzam Turghunov, and Dilmurod Sayid… won’t even be theoretically eligible for this amnesty,” said Umida Niazova, an Uzbek human rights expert now based in Berlin. “Our colleagues have been sentenced to lengthy terms for ‘grave crimes’, and for many it was not their first sentence.”
Regime critics are often convicted of offences that automatically exclude them from general amnesties, such as bribery, possession of drugs, and anti-state activities.
The Tashkent-based Initiative Group of Independent Human Rights Defenders believes there around 30 political prisoners in Uzbekistan.
Expert like Niazova say the international community needs to mobilise and apply various kinds of pressure on the Uzbek authorities to force them to take action. “Their release is a political issue,” she said.
A journalist and human rights advocate, Niazova herself spent three-and-a-half months in jail in Uzbekistan in 2007 before being released under amnesty.
Tashpulat Yoldashev, an Uzbek political analyst based abroad, doubts the government will see any reason to free its critics, even if some are technically eligible.
Mutabar Tajibayeva, who heads the Flaming Hearts human rights group in the eastern town of Fergana, dismisses general amnesties are mere window-dressing.
She too spent time in prison – three years – and was freed only under pressure from the international community. In her experience, prison governors are issued with lists of individuals who are not to be released, and deal with it by accusing them of breaking prison regulations, meaning they are not eligible for amnesty.
Before one amnesty in December 2005, she says, she found herself facing new 16 new criminal charges. Later on, she was accused of around 30 breaches of prison rules as she refused to write a plea for amnesty. She says she was only released because Tashkent obtained many millions dollars of assistance from the West.
(NBCentralAsia is an IWPR-funded project to create a multilingual news analysis and comment service for Central Asia, drawing on the expertise of a broad range of political observers across the region. The project ran from August 2006 to September 2007, covering all five regional states. With new funding, the service has resumed, covering Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan.)
