INTERNATIONAL RESPONSE
International organizations engaged in Uzbekistan's post-Soviet transition have taken limited steps to aid in the process of eradicating torture in Uzbekistan, but these efforts have yielded little fruit, mainly due to the lack of will on the part of the Uzbek government.
The United Nations established a resident representative office in Uzbekistan in 1993 under the auspices of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP). By 1995, it had begun to implement Phase I of its program on democracy and governance, which included support for the creation of both the parliamentary Ombudsman and the National Center for Human Rights. To assess the success of this program, the UNDP in 1999 engaged independent consultants who reportedly issued a damning critique of the failure of these institutions to improve in any way the country's human rights performance.13 As a result, according to UNDP officials in Tashkent, the organization is phasing out its direct financial support for the operations of the National Center for Human Rights.14
In November 1999, the United Nations Committee against Torture examined the state report of Uzbekistan. The committee, while praising the "excellent quality...frankness and exhaustiveness" of the report, raised serious concerns about Uzbekistan's adherence to the convention.15 Specifically, the committee noted the large gap between the dictates of Uzbek law and the actual admissibility of evidence obtained through torture and the impunity of law enforcement officials for torture. It cited "the particularly large number of complaints of torture or maltreatment and the small number of subsequent convictions."16 The committee called on Uzbekistan to review the system for handling complaints of torture and to ensure that illegally obtained evidence is no longer admitted in court. Sadly, Uzbek officials failed to appear for the review of their report to the United Nations Human Rights Committee, which monitors compliance with the ICCPR, scheduled for October 2000; the review has been postponed until March 2001.
Especially in the past year, relevant thematic mechanisms of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, the special rapporteur on torture and the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, have received increasing numbersof communications regarding violations in Uzbekistan.17 Both mechanisms have devoted greater attention to Uzbekistan than in past years, though they have yet to be invited by the government to visit the country.
The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), through its Central Asia Liason Office established in Tashkent in July 1995, has undertaken a number of human rights training courses for government officials and NGO representatives since that time. In September 2000, the OSCE plans to train judges, prosecutors, and defense lawyers on international legal standards, and the identification of possible gaps between domestic and international legislation in a series of seminars.18
Every year the Uzbekistan chapter of the United States State Department's Country Reports on Human Rights Practices acknowledges the widespread nature of torture in that country.19 In its bilateral relations, the U.S. has continually sought to engage Uzbekistan on the need to improve its human rights performance. With respect to aid policy and development assistance, however, the U.S. has shied away from linking assistance to human rights improvements generally. Reportedly, technical assistance to the Uzbek police and security ministries provided by the U.S. Department of Justice has addressed the issue of torture, incorporating elements of human rights training into the approximately ten annual training seminars conducted for Uzbek judges, prosecutors, lawyers, and police.20 A U.S. Department of Justice report assessing the Uzbek criminal justice system produced in 1999 makes only passing reference to the problem of torture.21
13 The UNDP has not made the consultant's report public.
14 Human Rights Watch interview with Flora Perevertailo, Tashkent, June 8, 2000. This official indicated that while the National Human Rights Center and the Ombudsman's office would no longer receive general budgetary support, they would continue to receive UNDP funds to carry out programs in the UNDP's new priority areas of sustainable income generation and "human resources development for change."
15 Despite its praise for the report's completeness, the committee instructed Uzbekistan to "report to the Committee, in the next report to be submitted in October 2000, on the missing or incomplete replies to the questions concerning, in particular, the number of persons detained and the number of persons executed after being sentenced to death during the last two years." Committee Against Torture, Twenty-third session, 8-19 November, 1999, Consideration of Reports submitted by states parties under article 19 of the Convention, Conclusions and Recommendations of the Committee against Torture, Uzbekistan, Convention Against Torture/C/23/7, November 19, 1999.
16 Committee against Torture, Twenty-third session, 8-19 November, 1999, Consideration of Reports submitted by states parties under article 19 of the Convention, Conclusions and Recommendations of the Committee against Torture, Uzbekistan, Convention Against Torture/C/23/7, November 19, 1999.
17 See the 1999 report of the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, E/CN.4/2000/, December 28, 1999. The government of Uzbekistan did not respond to any of the four cases submitted to it by the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention by the mandated ninety-day deadline. See also E/CN.4/2000/9, Report of the Special Rapporteur, Sir Nigel Rodley, submitted pursuant to Commission on Human Rights Resolution 1999/32, pp. 223-225. This report does not indicate that the government of Uzbekistan made any reply to the numerous cases submitted to it by the Special Rapporteur on Torture.
18 Available on the website of the OSCE, http://www.osce.org/odihr/cal2000.htm#cUzb, November 2000.
19 See the most recent report, Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 1999 released by the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, U.S. Department of State, February 25, 2000, which states that "Although the law prohibits these practices, police routinely beat and otherwise mistreat detainees to obtain confessions. Both police and the NSS [SNB] used beatings and harassment against citizens."
20 Assistance is provided through the U.S. Department of State Anti-Crime Training and Technical Assistance (ACTTA) Program, coordinated by the State Department's Bureau for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL). According to the U.S. Government Assistance to and Cooperative Activities with the New Independent States of the Former Soviet Union, FY 1999 Annual Report, $2.0 million in assistance was provided through this program in FY 1999. The report also states that "the Tashkent Municipal Police Department participated in an extended INL-sponsored community policing exchange with the Police Department of the City of San Antonio, Texas. Uzbek law enforcement officials also actively participated in training programs at the INL-supported International Law Enforcement Academy (ILEA) in Budapest, Hungary. In FY 1999, fifteen Uzbek officers graduated from ILEA's eight-week mid-level management program, and the Government of Uzbekistan actively participated in ILEA's curriculum development, retraining and needs-assessment programs." Officers of the Tashkent Municipal Police Department are implicated in acts of torture by the testimony presented in this report. The regional security officer and the political officer of the U.S. Embassy in Uzbekistan are responsible for vetting participants in these programs to ensure that those implicated in human rights abuses are excluded. According to sources at the Department of Justice, participants have been excluded on human rights grounds. Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Scott Boylan, November 14, 2000.
21 U.S. Department of Justice Criminal Division, Office of Overseas Prosecutorial Development, Assistance and Training (OPDAT), "Assessment of the Criminal Justice System of the Republic of Uzbekistan," June 18, 1999.