Torture of Female Prisoners Now Routine in Uzbekistan

Human rights groups in Uzbekistan report an increase in the use of torture and sexual violence against female detainees, and are urging the international community to press the authorities to stop it.

Human rights activists highlighted their concerns when they met Polish embassy officials in Tashkent recently. Poland currently holds the presidency of the Council of the European Union.

"Our key message to the Europeans is that despite assurances from the Uzbek government that the situation with torture is improving, there have been no real changes," local human rights defender Vladimir Husainov said.

The Ezgulik human rights group has issued a number of statements this year alleging torture of female detainees, based on interviews with prisoners and their relatives.

In testimony cited by the group, former prisoner Manura Ibrahimova spoke of routine and institutionalised acts of sexual violence at the Zangiata prison in Tashkent region.

“Terrible cries are constantly heard from many prison cells,” she said. “Rape has become universal.”

Prisoners like Nasiba Jumaniozova and Muhayo Odilova gave birth following rapes committed in prison. Odilova reported that she became pregnant after she was gang-raped and tortured over 27 days. She says an investigating officer regularly smashed a heavy book into her face and punched her in the kidneys.

Mass rape is also alleged in the cases of Dilfuza Normatova and of sisters Khosiat and Raihon Soatov. In 2009, Raihon Saoatov’s brother alleged that she was raped by 12 policemen while in detention and subsequently bore a child.

As with male detainees, numerous accounts indicate that torture is most commonly used to coerce detainees into signing confessions prior to trial.

Ezgulik leader Vasila Inoyatova says torture generally and sexual violence in particular offer an easy route for police to frame detainees.

"Where the trial is a political one, they justify violence against women by the need to crush enemies of the state," Inoyatova said. "Where ordinary crime is involved, violence and torture against women are employed to secure false confessions and improve police statistics."

In the case of women, sexual violence is common, but research conducted by local rights groups and the Human Rights in Central Asia Association, based in France, indicate that the “standard” torture methods used against men are increasingly being applied to female detainees as well.

"Beating with truncheons and suffocation using plastic bags used to be used only against men, but these methods are now widely used on female detainees," a rights defender who did not want to be identified said.

The activist added that in one case in the southwestern town of Karshi, police tore clothing off women accused of Islamic activism to force them to confess.

Tamara Chikunova used to head a group called Mothers Against the Death Penalty and Torture before she was forced to leave Uzbekistan, like many rights activists. She says she has evidence that female detainees are deliberately infected with diseases, either through rape or through some kind of medical procedure.

"When we monitor the use of torture against female detainees, they often report being injected with some kind of drugs," she said.

Uzbekistan’s deputy prosecutor Alisher Sharafutdinov denies torture is ever used in women’s prisons and dismisses the cases documented as "lies, the product of diseased imaginations".

He said that as a signatory to international conventions banning torture, “international observers are allowed in to all penal facilities in the country every year to carry out a real evaluation of the situation".

Uzbekistan annually reported its progress in combating torture, and the government-run National Human Rights Centre was “doing a great job", Sharafutdinov added.

In fact, Uzbekistan’s last report on torture to the United Nations human rights commission dates from 2008. In 2010, the commission described Uzbekistan’s efforts as "unconvincing".

In 2003, the UN’s special rapporteur on torture, Theo van Boven, concluded that the use of torture in Uzbekistan was “systematic" after visiting the country.

Rather than deal with specific cases raised, the Uzbek government’s main line of defence is to cite the list conventions it has ratified, and the fact that it has a national action plan on human rights.

This article was produced as part of IWPR's News Briefing Central Asia output, funded by the National Endowment for Democracy.