Uzbek Rights Activists to Fight for Sports Writer's Release
Campaigners hope jailed reporter’s popularity will increase pressure on authorities to review case.
Uzbek Rights Activists to Fight for Sports Writer's Release
Campaigners hope jailed reporter’s popularity will increase pressure on authorities to review case.
The conviction of a popular football journalist on charges of Islamic extremism has caused outrage among human rights defenders in Uzbekistan, who say they will do everything they can to secure his release.
Khairullo Hamidov, 35, a sports writer and TV commentator, was given a six year term on May 27 in a trial in which 20 people were accused of membership of a radical group calling itself “Jihodchilar” (Jihadists).
Arrested in January, he was convicted under the penal code offences of belonging to an extremist group and producing seditious material.
Hamidov denied all the charges. His lawyer says the factual evidence presented by the prosecution was flimsy.
Police said that during a search of Hamidov’s home in January they found audio recordings of sermons by two popular Muslim clerics – Abduvali Mirzoev, a revered imam from the eastern city of Andijan who disappeared in the early Nineties and is widely believed to have been abducted, and Obidkhon-Qori Nazarov, a leading imam in the capital Tashkent who fled the country to escape government persecution. Sermons by both clerics circulated widely in Uzbekistan for years, and were available for sale openly or under the counter at markets.
“The charges were based solely on that,” said the lawyer, who plans to appeal the verdict.
Human rights defenders say the authorities were clearly unable to pin anything on Hamidov but secured a guilty verdict anyway.
Surat Ikramov, leader of the Initiative Group of Independent Human Rights Defenders of Uzbekistan, a non-government organisation that monitors trials, says the judicial process was deeply flawed, and “no proof whatsoever” was offered to show Hamidov or his fellow-defendants were members of a group called Jihodchilar.
Many believe Hamidov was targeted because of his second line of work, as a writer on religious and ethical themes. As well as writing for the sports papers Interfootball and Сhampion and commentating on state TV, he presented a programme called “The Road to Enlightenment” on a private radio station, Navruz which proved so popular that CD recordings went on sale at markets in Uzbekistan and neighbouring Tajikistan.
Friends and colleagues say Hamidov used the programmes to encourage people to observe the traditional form of Sunni Islam practiced in Uzbekistan and stay away from extremist, fundamentalist trends.
Although Hamidov shared the Uzbek government’s dislike of fundamentalism, said Ikramov, “he was summoned to the National Security Service and given a warning on two occasion before his arrest. They very much wanted to put him in jail for conducting religious education, something the authorities don’t like.”
Another contributing factor may have been Hamidov’s poetry, published on the internet, expressing concern for the future of the Uzbek nation.
One poem, called “What has Happened to the Uzbeks?”, speaks about the hardships faced by many people in Uzbekistan, including labour migration, rising prostitution and increasing poverty.
While arrests of dissidents are commonplace in Uzbekistan, Hamidov’s case has caused unusual amounts of disquiet since he was so widely known among the general public.
Diloram Iskhakova of the Expert Working Group, an independent organisation that monitors social and political trends, predicts a wide-ranging campaign in support of the jailed journalist, although it will take place mainly on the internet rather than on the streets, given the high risk of arrest.
“Everyone will demand justice and will defend Khairullo because they know the accusations are illusory,” she said. “The millstones [of repression] have to be stopped, otherwise the same fate will befall all of us.”
Journalists say campaigns can be effective, citing the case of Umida Ahmedova, a top photographer whose images of rural life were deemed to have “libelled” the entire Uzbek nation. Ahmedova was found guilty in February, but released under an amnesty, in what many saw as an attempt by the authorities to defuse international outrage while saving face.
“The campaign… did achieve a result, even if it didn’t quite take the form one would have wanted,” said one local journalist.
Another journalist said the Hamidov case might be a turning-point if it focused greater public attention in Uzbekistan on cases of persecution and unjust trial.
“People might go as far as protesting. They know what authority he carries and they’re unlikely to remain silent, as used to be the case,” he said.
A third journalist said Hamidov’s conviction merely proved things were getting worse.
Rights groups say there are at least ten journalist languishing in jail in Uzbekistan, including Dilmurod Saidov, Solijon Abdrahmonov, Jamshid Karimov, Muhammad Bekjon, Rashid Bekjon, Ghairat Mehliboev and Mamadali Mahmudov.
In its annual ranking for freedom of the press, published in April, the United States-based watchdog group Freedom House put Uzbekistan in 189th equal place with Turkmenistan and Belarus, out of a total of 193 countries.
This article was produced jointly under two IWPR projects: Building Central Asian Human Rights Protection & Education Through the Media, funded by the European Commission; and the Human Rights Reporting, Confidence Building and Conflict Information Programme, funded by the Foreign Ministry of Norway.
The contents of this article are the sole responsibility of IWPR and can in no way be taken to reflect the views of either the European Union or the Foreign Ministry of Norway.
