V. IMPEDIMENTS TO REDRESS AND RELIEF

The government of Uzbekistan did not provide for redress for independent Muslims who were subjected to discriminatory arrest and conviction. High courts rarely remedied unjust verdicts against individuals on appeal. They did not conduct any systematic review of cases of independent Muslims to determine the legitimacy of the trend of convictions on religious grounds. Release by presidential amnesty decree proved an arbitrary, and even illusory, means of redress. Government agencies, including those tasked with championing citizen rights and helping victims of government abuse to obtain redress, displayed marked indifference or open hostility.

Citizens who pursued justice or relief outside of the framework of domestic law and government were hindered and often punished. When victims and their families appealed to relevant U.N. bodies competent to investigate cases after domestic remedies were exhausted, the government appeared to ignore the U.N. bodies’ communications. In at least two cases, the authorities harassed those who appealed to U.N. agencies. Victims of the government’s campaign who appealed to local or international rights groups were also harassed and threatened by law enforcement authorities.

Police thwarted efforts by relatives of convicted independent Muslims to organize and protest the government campaign. Demonstrations and other acts of peaceful public assembly were forcibly dispersed and participants were beaten, detained, arrested, and subjected to ongoing intrusive and intimidating surveillance. The complaints and requests of people at such gatherings were almost uniformly ignored by government officials to whom the public appeals were addressed.

Denial of Legal and Other Appeals

Because in practice the judiciary has no independence in Uzbekistan, the courts have provided little justice in the first instance or redress on appeal for independent Muslim defendants. Other possible avenues of redress, such as the office of the Ombudsperson, under parliamentary authority, and the influential entities of the official Muslim clergy, have also proven unresponsive, even outright hostile, to entreaties from victims’ families. Recourse to intergovernmental organizations and nongovernmental rights groups also proved a dangerous business, as it brought retaliation from government authorities.

Appeals to Government Entities

Another avenue of possible redress is the potential intervention of government offices—the presidency, the procuracy, and the Ombudsperson’s office.¹⁰⁷² Families of detainees approached these agencies with a variety of issues, ranging from claims of illegal arrest to request for an ill detainee’s transfer to a prison hospital. But efforts to engage these officials have been generally ineffective and even counterproductive, frequently resulting in a curt denial or dismissive reply that the complainant’s appeal has been passed on to another agency. Victims and their families have been particularly distraught after their appeals to the Ombudsperson’s office—the agency charged with liaising between victims and government and with facilitating redress for rights abuses—were not acted upon. In fact, complaints to the Ombudsperson were often merely forwarded to the police investigator or prosecutor responsible for the case, often the very subject of the prisoner or relative’s complaint.

The Ergashev family, for instance, appealed to Ombudsperson Sayora Rashidova (Rashidova herself is a member of parliament) with their allegations of procedural violations in the case of young Khojiakbar Ergashev. The Ombudsperson’s office did not respond, but a procuracy offical charged with reviewing criminal cases did. He informed the family that Ergashev’s guilt had been established during the investigation and court hearing. He pointed out that proof of Ergashev’s guilt included “...material evidence discovered, such as religious books, leaflets, magazines and narcotics,” and stated that the procuracy upheld the court’s decision.¹⁰⁷³
Relatives of Abdurashid Isakhojaev sent appeals on his behalf to Ombudsperson Rashidova; General Procurator U. Khudaikulov; SNB chief R. Inoiatov; Minister of Internal Affairs Z. Almatov; his deputy in charge of prisons, Rajab Kodirov; and President Karimov, requesting that Isakhojaev be sent to the main prison hospital located in Tashkent (called the Sangorod). Isakhojaev is disabled from a pre-existing injury and his motility and health has deteriorated in prison. According to Isakhojaev’s mother, “They passed my letters [to] each other [like] a football.”¹⁰⁷⁴ The Ombudsperson’s office responded to the family’s desperate appeal by copying the Isakhojaev family on a letter to the procuracy, asking that agency to look into the case.¹⁰⁷⁵ According to Isakhojaeva, one of the few direct responses she received was from Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs Kodirov, who sent her a letter dated February 5, 2000, stating that the prison hospital in Jaslyk was fully equipped to handle Isakhojaev’s medical needs and there was no need to send him to Tashkent for treatment.¹⁰⁷⁶ A December 1999 letter from the MVD, signed by Kodirov’s first deputy, Sarikov, stated that Isakhojaev could not be transferred to Tashkent because article 57 of the criminal procedure code of the Republic of Uzbekistan requires a convict to serve his entire sentence in one prison facility—an obviously specious claim given that independent Muslim inmates have frequently been transferred from one prison to another and Isakhojaev himself was initially incarcerated in Tavaksai prison, not Jaslyk.¹⁰⁷⁷ As of June 2000, Isakhojaev remained in Jaslyk.

Following a September 2000 presidential amnesty decree, Abdurashid Isakhojaev’s father went to the procuracy to once again see what could be done for his son. The elder Isakhojaev recalled that the procurator told him: “‘If he [Abdurashid] killed somebody, maybe I could help, but not for this crime.’”¹⁰⁷⁸

Accused Wahhabi Kudratullo Valiev testified in court that officials referred his complaints of torture in pre-trial detention back to his torturers. “I wrote letters to the general procuracy and to the president saying that I was wrongly accused and that the MVD [police] was forcing me to admit that I had conspired against the state. No one considered my appeals. The MVD tortured me, and it was the MVD itself that considered my appeal and said it was unfounded,” Valiev said in court.¹⁰⁷⁹
The family of accused Hizb ut-Tahrir member Beksot Juraev complained to the procuracy about a police search of their home, during which officers ransacked the premises, allegedly planted drugs and weapons, and threatened to arrest the family to force them to agree to the search report. The Juraevs received the following response: “Your argument that the narcotic substance opium, [and] the RGD-5 grenade, found on Juraev, B. and in his home, were planted by police officers appears to be unsubstantiated, because during the investigation the aforementioned material evidence was seized in the presence of participating witnesses and this was established in the report of the search.”¹⁰⁸⁰

Juraev’s parents appealed to a host of other government agencies, including the Ombudsperson’s office, the Supreme Court, and the office of President Karimov seeking review of their son’s case. In particular, they complained that even if their son were a member of Hizb ut-Tahrir, evidence should not have been planted to incriminate him, and they asked again that these fabricated charges be removed.¹⁰⁸¹ The Juraevs report that their appeals to Ombudsperson Sayora Rashidova and President Karimov complaining of an unfair Supreme Court trial and asking for assistance in compelling the Supreme Court to review the case were not examined in earnest, but simply forwarded to the Supreme Court, which responded that the case had been proven and that the family’s request was denied.¹⁰⁸²

Many relatives, desperate for sympathy and assistance, have continued to appeal to the Ombudsperson’s office. For others, the prospect for useful intervention by the Ombudsperson’s office to improve treatment of prisoners in Uzbekistan’s post-conviction facilities was irremediably undermined by Ombudsperson Rashidova’s own report of her visit to the most infamous facility, Jaslyk. After returning from an “inspection” of that prison in March 2000, she said in an interview in a state newspaper, “…conditions created for prisoners, and that the [corps] of guards are observing the law in their duties, made us happy.”¹⁰⁸³ Regarding prisoners in Jaslyk, she added, “…I can say that the supply of food and clothes for them is in good condition. What else can a person need who was found guilty by law, and who had admitted to [crimes with which he was charged]? Is the fact that such conditions have been created for prisoners not enough to state that human rights in Uzbekistan are being observed at every step?”¹⁰⁸⁴ Rashidova also reported that prisoners with whom she spoke at the prison had expressed their satisfaction with medical services, the quality of the food, and treatment by guards.¹⁰⁸⁵ By way of recommendation for improvements Rashidova had this to say: “Of course, we were also introduced closely to the conditions created for the guards. I can only say that we should thank them and create better conditions for their [corps].”¹⁰⁸⁶

Appeals to Official Clergy

Appealing to the Islamic establishment, an integral player in the government campaign, endangered independent Muslims, making them vulnerable to increased surveillance and even arrest by police. In one extreme case, a young man who appealed to Mufti Abdurashid Kori Bakhromov, head of the Muslim Board of Uzbekistan and leader of the official Islamic establishment, in June 1999 was turned over to police by that same clergyman.¹⁰⁸⁷ The young man, Usmon Inagamov, allegedly one of Farhod Usmanov’s religious students and a member of Hizb ut-Tahrir, had been upset by Usmanov’s death in pre-trial detention. He reacted by appealing to the mufti to speak out, arguing that silence made the official clergy complicit in Usmanov’s death and in the arrests of thousands of others. Beaten in detention, Inagamov was brought up on charges of anti-state activity and sentenced in a closed court to two and a half years in prison. Already ill with cancer, he died in prison nine months later, presumably from untreated illness aggravated by denial of medical care and harsh prison conditions.¹⁰⁸⁸

Appeals to Human Rights Organizations and the U.N.

Police and national security agents retaliated against victims of abuse and their relatives when they complained to local or international human rights defenders.

Shukhrat Parpiev was arbitrarily arrested, convicted to five years in prison, and allegedly killed by guards in Jaslyk in May 2000. Persons close to him told Human Rights Watch that after they informed a local human rights activist about Parpiev’s illegal arrest, officers from the SNB threatened to “make things worse” for the young man if further complaints were made.¹⁰⁸⁹

With regard to international contacts:

Following her release on parole, Feruza Kurbanova informed Human Rights Watch that the judge in her case had pressured her and her family to cut off contact with foreigners who had come to monitor her trial.¹⁰⁹⁰ According to Kurbanova, after representatives from Human Rights Watch, the British Embassy, and the BBC together with local rights activists attended a session of her trial, the judge instructed her to tell her mother “not to play with me and not to call those foreigners again.”¹⁰⁹¹ It is important to note, however, that international attention to the case did not cease and is believed to have had two important effects: Kurbanova was eventually provided with an attorney, and the judge handed down a very unusual and lenient one-year suspended sentence.
In 2000 a police officer paid an unannounced visit to the Akhmedov house in Andijan shortly after the family spoke with Human Rights Watch. The officer entered the house without a warrant and began to insult the family for having appealed to a human rights organization. He said he knew that the organization had given the family a “bulletin” and he demanded that the Akhmedovs hand it over to him, threatening that it would be “worse for them” if they did not.¹⁰⁹² Speaking to Akhmedov’s female relatives, the officer threatened to beat them if they did not give him the human rights documents.¹⁰⁹³ The Akhmedov family gave the officer the Human Rights Watch World Report 2000 chapter on Uzbekistan, translated into Uzbek, and contact information for the organization’s representative in Uzbekistan. The officer confiscated these materials and warned the women that they must not appeal to any more human rights organizations or he would beat them.¹⁰⁹⁴ SNB officers also repeatedly returned to the house at night to interrogate family members.¹⁰⁹⁵
On June 9, 2000, the Andijan District Court sentenced Komoliddin Sattarov to nine years in prison on charges that partly stemmed from his having allegedly written a complaint on behalf of his imprisoned brother, Murodjon Sattarov, to the U.N. Human Rights Committee (UNHRC). Uzbekistan is a signatory to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and its optional protocol, which provides for the submission of complaints to the UNHRC. Police arrested Komoliddin Sattarov on February 2, 2000, allegedly planting Hizb ut-Tahrir leaflets in his pockets. During a subsequent police search of his home, officers found a completed complaint form addressed to the UNHRC on behalf of his brother, imprisoned on charges of Hizb ut-Tahrir membership, and another six blank complaint forms. Police confiscated the UNHRC forms as evidence against Komoliddin Sattarov. Although Sattarov was later charged with an array of crimes involving alleged religious extremism, his father reported that the investigator from the Andijan procurator’s office informed him that the confiscated complaint forms amounted to the most serious and incriminating evidence against his son.¹⁰⁹⁶ In the verdict against Sattarov, the ruling judge referred to the UNHRC complaint forms as “appeals to a global human rights organization” and listed the discovery of these forms along with the Islamic leaflets as material evidence that Komoliddin Sattarov was involved in “anti-state activity.”¹⁰⁹⁷ In an unusual step, presumably due to international diplomatic pressure, the Markhamat District Court in Andijan province reconsidered the case on October 18, 2000, with representatives from the U.N., U.S. Embassy, Human Rights Watch, and OSCE present, along with local rights defenders. Judge Kozim Karimov heard arguments and ruled the U.N. documents inadmissible as evidence. When he issued the final verdict, he also added another year to Sattarov’s sentence.¹⁰⁹⁸

Andijan police, led by officer Ortikali Rakhmatov, head of the Criminal Investigations Department, returned to the Sattarov home on March 20, 2001. This time, they confiscated the Human Rights Watch World Report 2000 chapter on Uzbekistan.¹⁰⁹⁹ When local rights activist Muzafarmirzo Iskhakov appealed in person to officer Rakhmatov to return the document, explaining that Human Rights Watch was a registered organization in Uzbekistan and that its report was neither secret nor subversive, police refused to return the document and threw Iskhakov out of the office.¹¹⁰⁰

Tashkent authorities interfered with efforts made by the family of Rakhima Akhmedalieva, wife of Imam Rukhiddin Fakhruddinov, to appeal to the United Nations on her behalf. On March 26, 2001, just nine days after police arrested Akhmedalieva, her daughter, Odina Maksudova, went to the Tashkent office of the U.N. Mission to deliver an appeal for assistance in securing her mother’s release. Maksudova described what happened subsequently in a later letter addressed to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan. When she first approached the U.N. building, police officers attempted to block her entrance and confiscate the letter she had written. When she succeeded in entering the building, she handed the appeal over to a U.N. receptionist, an employee of the United Nations Development Programme, who then gave the letter—which was addressed to the U.N.—to a nearby police officer.¹¹⁰¹ Maksudova reported that, fearing arrest by the officer, she and a friend who had accompanied her to the U.N. office exited the building. She claimed that, upon leaving, she overheard the receptionist ask the police officer, “Why couldn’t you take them away in such a manner that we wouldn’t have any trouble?”¹¹⁰² The officer proceeded to do just that, detaining Maksudova and her companion outside the building and holding them in the Mirabad district police station for four hours.¹¹⁰³ Maksudova was brought before an investigator, who called her an “animal” and forced Maksudova and her companion to write statements disavowing the letter to the U.N.¹¹⁰⁴ Maksudova was already acquainted with the officer—she had been detained once before, when she had appealed to police for help after her mother was arrested—and said that she agreed to write the false statement because she feared him.¹¹⁰⁵

Amnesty

Presidential amnesty decrees, orders for the release of certain categories of prisoners, are common in Uzbekistan and other countries of the former Soviet Union, primarily to relieve prison overcrowding.¹¹⁰⁶ While release under amnesty does not provide redress to independent Muslims for the abuses they were subjected to, it does provide relief from the extraordinary hardship of prison. But only limited groups of independent Muslims have qualified for amnesty. In some cases, the amnesty process itself triggered a new round of abuse of religious prisoners. In other cases, those amnestied were rearrested or persistently harassed.¹¹⁰⁷ Until 2001 presidential amnesties did not apply to those charged with sedition and other articles of the criminal code used to prosecute independent Muslims. The August 2001 amnesty applied to this category of prisoner, but only to those who had been sentenced to six years or less, thus exempting the majority of independent Muslim prisoners, who typically received longer terms.¹¹⁰⁸ For example, of the 709 religious prisoners in Human Rights Watch’s database who had been arrested or tried as of August 2001, only seventy-one had been sentenced to six years or less. The 2002 amnesty provided for the release of “Those convicted and sentenced for the first time to prison terms of up to ten years inclusive or who were given penalties other than imprisonment for involvement in the activities of extremist organizations and committing, as a member of these, a crime against the constitution[al] order of the Republic of Uzbekistan or other activities against public security.”¹¹⁰⁹

The amnesty creates a revolving door for prisoners, some are released so others can be jailed—and the door swings full circle when those released are rearrested and imprisoned again. The U.S. State Department reported in 2003 that overcrowding was a problem in Uzbekistan’s prisons, and noted that, “The overcrowding may have been one of the reasons for the large-scale amnesty in 2001, but the problem remained severe.”¹¹¹⁰ Given the pace of ongoing arrests of independent Muslims at least, it is perhaps not surprising that amnesties are an inefficient means of addressing the problem of overcrowded prisons, as well as being a poor substitute for justice and redress.

Prison authorities, whose record of abuse is detailed above, have broad powers to determine who will be amnestied. Persons found to have “systematically” violated internal prison rules—i.e. those with three or more infractions on their record—were ineligible for release under amnesty decrees.¹¹¹¹ Prison authorities arbitrarily charged religious inmates with prison infractions, making them ineligible for amnesty. They did so either by fabricating violations or taking punitive action against legitimate activity such as prayer and counting that as a “demerit.”

The 2001 and 2002 amnesty decrees include clauses that require, as a condition for release, that religious prisoners declare their “repentance” for crimes committed, and ask the state’s forgiveness. Under both decrees, prison administrators are authorized to verify the “sincerity” of the declaration of contrition and give their opinion as to a given prisoner’s active repentance.¹¹¹² This is one way in which the amnesty process itself brings on further persecution. In addition, while not required by the decree, in practice independent Muslim prisoners also must disavow their religious beliefs or affiliations to qualify for release. Refusal resulted not only in foregoing the opportunity to be released, but also, as noted above, in beatings, solitary confinement, or other forms of retaliation.¹¹¹³ For example, one convicted Hizb ut-Tahrir member who had been serving a six-year term in Novoi prison, number 64/29, told Human Rights Watch that prison officials there forced him to sign a letter that went significantly beyond a plea for forgiveness. In order to qualify for the 2001 amnesty, he said, he was compelled to sign a statement of apology that also included a vow that he would not be involved in any religious movements in the future and would loyally serve President Karimov and the state.¹¹¹⁴

Prison authorities often demanded a letter from the mahalla committee of a prisoner’s previous neighborhood or district, promising to take responsibility for the prisoner, vouching for his or her future good behavior. In one typical letter provided to Human Rights Watch, the mahalla committee agreed to “take responsibility for [the prisoner's] rehabilitation in the future.”¹¹¹⁵ In other letters, the mahalla committees’ obligation was more explicit, as they stated that the committee would act as a “guardian” to the prisoner upon release, or would keep “him under observation.”¹¹¹⁶ While not required by the amnesty decrees, the mahalla letter, in some cases, proved a significant stumbling block to qualifying for amnesty. Relatives of a prisoner who potentially qualified for amnesty were instructed by prison officials, police, or local authorities to obtain such a letter, signed by the head of the mahalla committee and other committee members. Perhaps because of the responsibility that was understood to accompany a guarantee to keep released prisoners under close observation and control, and the fear that were a former prisoner to violate the law again the members of the mahalla committee would face censure from more senior government authorities, the mahalla committees were sometimes reluctant to provide the letters. During the first months of 2003—the implementation period for the 2002 amnesty, which was passed in December 2002—Human Rights Watch learned of several instances in which mahalla committees refused to sign letters of support, thereby effectively blocking the possibility of releasing prisoners.¹¹¹⁷ In these cases, even when the family provided their own letters of guarantee, prison authorities rejected the claim for amnesty and refused to release the prisoners.¹¹¹⁸

Another informal requirement for release under amnesty was payment of a sizeable bribe. According to local rights defenders, prison officials extorted sizeable bribes from prisoners and their families in exchange for freedom.¹¹¹⁹

Sometimes because they had paid large bribes and sometimes because they feared retaliation from law enforcement, many amnestied prisoners were reluctant to talk to rights groups, including Human Rights Watch, about their experiences. They were particularly hesitant to discuss the conditions of their release. However, specific cases brought to the attention of rights defenders were believed to be representative of a wider trend of official treatment of amnestied persons. The vulnerability of amnestied prisoners to ongoing harassment by law enforcement officials is sharply illustrated by the case of Idobat Sultanova, a forty-year-old mother of six living in the Fergana Valley at the time of her arrest. Sultanova was detained in June 2000 for membership in Hizb ut-Tahrir and convicted in September to six years in prison on related charges. She appealed the Margilan District Court’s decision and succeeded in getting her term reduced to a three-year suspended sentence. And so, after serving three months of her original term, was released.¹¹²⁰ When the 2001 amnesty was declared, she was cleared of the suspended sentence as well. However, she remained a focus of attention for Margilan law enforcement agents. She reported that they detained her for several hours and insulted her soon after the amnesty went into effect, and that they constantly harassed her, questioning her frequently about where she was going and with whom she met.¹¹²¹ Sultanova told Human Rights Watch that police regularly compelled her to sign statements promising to stay at home and not participate in any protests.¹¹²² She further reported to Human Rights Watch that, on March 5, 2002, officers, this time from the SNB, again detained her and held her for ten hours without charge.¹¹²³ Finally, in July, the SNB pulled out its trump card. On July 12, 2002, officers from the Fergana province department of the SNB arrested Sultanova again and took her into custody, on charges of leadership of a Hizb ut-Tahrir women’s group in Margilan.¹¹²⁴ She was tried in the Margilan City Court and sentenced on September 13, 2002 to seven years in prison.¹¹²⁵ As of this writing, Sultanova was back in the women’s prison facility in Kulyuk, located on the outskirts of Tashkent.

Other independent Muslims shared a similar fate—they were amnestied, then rearrested on the same kinds of charges for which they were originally incarcerated, and then were sent back to jail. This was what happened to Merziot Usmanov, who was sentenced in 1999 to three years in prison on charges of subverting the constitution. He was released under amnesty in December 2001 and was rearrested just months later, in April 2002. At his new trial in July 2002, the Shaikhantaur District Court in Tashkent found him guilty of “extremism” and sentenced him to eight years in prison.¹¹²⁶

Suppression of Public Protests

Unable to obtain redress through recourse to domestic remedies or international organizations, some citizens in desperation turned to public protest as a means of voicing their dissatisfaction with government policies. They attempted to influence those in power to release those unjustly imprisoned. However, the Uzbek government does not allow public protests that express dissent and vigorously punished those who organized and participated in them. Police and security agents also sought to pre-empt such protests “both by refusing to allow potential demonstrators to leave their homes and by blocking access to planned demonstration sites.”¹¹²⁷ Police routinely broke up demonstrations—usually consisting of no more than about fifty people—against the arrest and torture of independent Muslims, and sometimes beat and detained protestors.¹¹²⁸ In at least one case documented by Human Rights Watch, police physically abused and threatened the wife of a prisoner because they believed she was advocating for his release.

Some examples of the incidents known to Human Rights Watch include the funeral of a young man evidently tortured to death in custody, and several protests held during the period 1998 to 2003 by female relatives of religious prisoners.

Farhod Usmanov was tortured to death in police detention just days after authorities arrested him, on June 14, 1999.¹¹²⁹ Police treated the funeral as they would a public protest, and arrested dozens of mourners.

Authorities who delivered Usmanov’s body to his family for burial ordered relatives not to disclose his death or to show anyone the body, and plainclothes officers were posted outside the family home during the night of June 25.¹¹³⁰ Police set up roadblocks during the night to block access to the neighborhood and surrounded the area with armed officers from the Ministry of Internal Affairs and National Security Service. Nonetheless, at least hundreds, and by some accounts thousands, of mourners gathered early the following day to attend the funeral.¹¹³¹ Police arrested dozens of them at the scene.¹¹³² One female relative who attempted to attend Usmanov’s funeral recalled, “I went to Farhod’s funeral and was arrested on the way, along with thirty or forty others. All of them were men, except for me and one other woman, who was ill, so they fined her 6,000 som and released her. An elderly man was arrested also and taken along with me to the local ROVD [district police station] and held one night and then released with a 6,000 som fine. My husband and I were held for ten days and not fined. We were held in the ROVD.”¹¹³³ She described the effect the arrest had on her, “Before that, I was never interested in Hizb ut-Tahrir. After the detention, I read the Hizb ut-Tahrir book, and it made sense to me. There was nothing in it about extremism, just about...living the right way.”¹¹³⁴ Police held other mourners under misdemeanor detention for ten to thirty days. Authorities reportedly made it a condition of their release that they not discuss their detention or make any claims of physical mistreatment in custody.¹¹³⁵

In January 1998 shortly after the government launched its full-fledged campaign to arrest independent Muslims, some one hundred women gathered outside a Tashkent police station to demand the immediate release of their male relatives. The protest was dispersed by police, who detained several of the women and levied fines against those they considered the protest’s organizers.
On November 18, 1999, Human Rights Watch was present when about forty women gathered outside the Tashkent mayor’s office to protest the illegal arrest and incarceration of their male relatives. A number of women reported that their relatives’ whereabouts were unknown and that they had been searching desperately for them. One of these women reported that her husband, detained two months earlier, was still missing in police custody. As with previous attempts to speak out against the government’s arrest policy, this one was quickly shut down by security forces. A busload of police arrived on the scene as the women approached the entrance to the mayor’s office building. At least six officials from the mayor’s office, joined by approximately fifteen police officers and soldiers, surrounded the women. The city officials refused to grant the women’s request for an audience with the mayor, advising them to return another day with a written appeal. After about forty minutes of discussion, officials disbanded the demonstration and escorted the women away from the government building.

Representatives of an international organization, who arrived on the scene as the women were being dispersed, reported that plainclothes officers presumed to be from the National Security Service followed several of the women as they descended into a nearby metro station. A Human Rights Watch representative noted that officials also approached participants, asking for and writing down their names. The police also succeeded in videotaping all of those gathered, widely perceived as an act of intimidation, since the National Security Service had videotaped past public demonstrations and subsequently arrested participants.

Women in various parts of Uzbekistan staged a string of protests in March and April 2001. On March 21, an estimated 300 demonstrators, primarily women, took to the streets in Andijan—one of the areas hardest hit by the government’s campaign against independent Muslims—to demand the release of their male relatives imprisoned for their religious affiliations and beliefs.¹¹³⁶ The participants reportedly carried signs reading, “2001: Year of the Widow and Orphan,” a play on President Karimov’s declaration of the year 2001 as the “Year of the Mother and Child.”¹¹³⁷ At 2:00 p.m., uniformed police and security agents in civilian clothes surrounded the women and then brought in minibuses to break up the gathering.¹¹³⁸ The women called on the mayor, Kobiljon Obidov, to address them, but he refused, instructing them instead to meet with him in his office in groups of five. Meetings were held in this way with some fifty women.¹¹³⁹ According to a local rights activist who interviewed the women afterward, the mayor, the head of the province court, Ikhtior Abdullaev, and the Andijan province procurator, Umatullo Shamsiev, instructed the women to write and sign statements detailing their complaints and promised each group of women that they would form a commission to review the men’s cases by April 1, 2001.¹¹⁴⁰ Around 5:00 or 6:00 p.m., police dispersed the crowd and detained at least two female participants, identified to Human Rights Watch as Zuhra and Umida. Zuhra’s release was later confirmed. Umida presumably was also released.¹¹⁴¹ As of late April 2001 no review of the men’s cases had been undertaken by the government.

A follow-up protest was organized two days later in Andijan, where relatives again gathered outside the city mayor’s office.¹¹⁴² This time, police quickly broke up the demonstration.¹¹⁴³ Officers forced the women onto police buses and took them to the police station, where they showered them with threats and insults, and fined them each 2,200 som, approximately one month’s salary. Officers pointedly threatened to extend the prison sentences of the women’s jailed relatives if they did not write “explanatory letters” (a euphemism for confessions) and ask for forgiveness for their part in the demonstration.¹¹⁴⁴ The women were released only after signing the statements and expressing their contrition.¹¹⁴⁵ Several of the women expressed concern that police, who had recorded the faces of participants on videotape during the gathering, would come after them later.¹¹⁴⁶ Police also reportedly reacted to the incident by throwing up roadblocks to cut off access between the Fergana Valley city and the nation’s capital.¹¹⁴⁷
On April 12, 2001, some forty women staged a protest outside the mayor’s office in Tashkent.¹¹⁴⁸ A local rights defender who observed the demonstration, Mahbuba Kosymova, reported that police shouted insults at the demonstrators, called them terrorists, fired blanks over the heads of the protesters, and used force to disperse the crowd, shoving and pushing women into minibuses to take them into custody.¹¹⁴⁹ According to a western diplomatic source, at least ten participants were injured by police.¹¹⁵⁰

Four women were detained beyond the day of the protest. Police reportedly held the sister-in-law of convicted Hizb ut-Tahrir member Shoknoza Musaeva and another young woman, Manzura Oripova, for three days at a local police station.¹¹⁵¹ Sources close to Oripova told rights defender Mahbuba Kosymova that Oripova was forced into a police car by officers who twisted her arms behind her back and taunted her, saying, “What a nice girl we’ve got,” and that officers beat her at the local police station.¹¹⁵² Police held a young woman named Shaira in custody for one day for her part in the demonstration and held another protestor, whose name was not available at the time of this writing, for an unknown period of detention.¹¹⁵³

At the end of July 2002, Tashkent police detained about thirty women for protesting the harsh prison conditions of their male relatives who were jailed for their connection to Hizb ut-Tahrir. Most of the protesters were released within several hours; however, some were kept in custody for several days.¹¹⁵⁴
When implementation of the 2002 presidential amnesty ended on March 4 or 5, 2003, thousands of independent Muslims were still in prison. Female relatives of religious prisoners held a peaceful gathering in Tashkent on March 7 to protest torture of detainees and the state’s failure to release men who should have been released under the amnesty. An estimated sixty women took to the streets near the Chorsu bazaar, in the neighborhood referred to as the old city. According to one observer, police detained at least forty of the women who first arrived at the scene for the demonstration.¹¹⁵⁵ A Human Rights Watch representative saw a busload of women wearing headscarves being taken away from the area by police.¹¹⁵⁶

In what appeared to be an act of intimidation organized by security agents, twenty men in plainclothes violently assaulted two journalists who had come to report on the protest.¹¹⁵⁷ Uniformed officers nearby refused to come to the journalists’ aid.¹¹⁵⁸ The reporters’ recording equipment, including interviews with the female protestors, was stolen during the attack.

A protest in Margilan the same day, March 7, involved around twenty to twenty-five relatives of independent Muslim prisoners. The demonstrators gathered outside the mayor’s office to protest the state’s failure to release their family members under the 2002 amnesty. Police broke up the protest and detained six female protestors.¹¹⁵⁹
Andijan police detained Nodira Solaeva on May 30, 2003, and took her to the Bulakbashinski district police station. The deputy police chief, Tajiddin Mansurov, accused Solaeva of participating in a protest in Tashkent along with other female relatives of religious prisoners earlier that month.¹¹⁶⁰ He shouted at her. He then said, “You need a man, that’s why you went to Tashkent. You should have come to me.”¹¹⁶¹ Alone in the room with Solaeva, Mansurov began to strangle her with his hands and then with plastic batons. She told Human Rights Watch, “He threatened to send two men to my house to rape me at night.”¹¹⁶² Solaeva recounted that officer Mansurov exposed himself, saying again, “You need a man.” When other officers entered the room, Mansurov again strangled and hit Solaeva. “He said that Almatov will kill my husband and that I can’t do anything,” Solaeva said.¹¹⁶³ Mansurov ordered Solaeva to be placed in the courtyard in the sun. “[They] didn’t give me water, drink, food for sixteen hours,” Solaeva told Human Rights Watch. When Mansurov finally released Solaeva it was with a warning, she said, “He told me to sit at home, not to go to pickets or to Tashkent.”¹¹⁶⁴

¹⁰⁷² The office of the Ombudsperson is tasked with receiving individual citizen’s complaints regarding violations of rights and assisting citizens to obtain remedy for injustices. Rather than conducting investigations itself, the office has a primarily advisory role. It sends communications regarding citizen complaints to the agency responsible for the alleged abuse—be it the procuracy, courts, or Ministry of Internal Affairs—makes recommendations to that agency, and awaits a response.

¹⁰⁷³ Letter to S. A. Ergasheva, from A.M. Salikhov, office of the Procurator General, Tashkent, document number 2/498-99, February 7, 2000.

¹⁰⁷⁴ Written statement to the Organization of the Islamic Conference, U.N. Commission on Human Rights and various human rights organizations, from Sharifa Isakhojaeva, January 30, 2000.

¹⁰⁷⁵ Letter from Ombudsperson Sayora Rashidova to General Procurator Khudaikulov, November 4, 1999, document number 07-05/1776k, on file with Human Rights Watch.

¹⁰⁷⁶ Written statement by Sharifa Isakhojaeva, February 20, 2000. In fact, the prison hospital at Jaslyk is known to be poorly equipped. Prisoners at Jaslyk are reportedly denied access to nearly any medical attention. Jaslyk prison authorities did not allow the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Torture access to the entire Jaslyk prison during his visit, and so the Special Rapporteur was unable to assess the state of medical facilities there. Report of the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Torture, Theo van Boven, p. 31.

¹⁰⁷⁷ Letter to Sharifa Isakhojaeva from R. Sarikov, Ministry of Internal Affairs, Main Administration for the Execution of Punishments [GUIN], document number 28/2/4-i-95, December 29, 1999.

¹⁰⁷⁸ Douglas Frantz, “Persecution Charged in Ex-Soviet Republic,” The New York Times, October 29, 2000. For more on the limitations of the amnesty process, see below, in this chapter.

¹⁰⁷⁹ Human Rights Watch unofficial transcript, Tashkent City Court hearing held in the Akmal Ikramov District Court building, Tashkent, November 1, 2000.

¹⁰⁸⁰ Letter from A.M. Solikhov, office of the Procurator General, Tashkent, to Rahim Juraev, January 29, 2000, document number 12/1048-99, on file with Human Rights Watch.

¹⁰⁸¹ Letter from Rahim Juraev to President Karimov, December 18, 1999; and Human Rights Watch interview with persons close to the case, names withheld, Tashkent, February 10, 2000.

¹⁰⁸² Letter from Rahim Juraev and Umida Juraeva to Sayora Rashidova, October 18, 1999; letter from Rahim Juraev to President Karimov, December 18, 1999; and letter from Judge S.O. Khojamuratov of the Supreme Court of the Republic of Uzbekistan, to Rakhim Juraev, October 21, 1999, document number 6-2681-99.

¹⁰⁸³ Ombudsperson Sayora Rashidova, as quoted in “Protecting Human Rights is our Sacred Duty,” Postda [At One’s Post] newspaper, March 30, 2000. Postda is published by the Ministry of Internal Affairs.

¹⁰⁸⁴ Ibid.

¹⁰⁸⁵ Ibid.

¹⁰⁸⁶ Ibid.

¹⁰⁸⁷ Written report by Vasila Inoiatova, April 2000; Human Rights Watch interview with Vasila Inoiatova, Tashkent, April 5, 2000; and Human Rights Watch interview with Vasila Inoiatova, Tashkent, December 12, 2000.

¹⁰⁸⁸ The location of the court hearing is unclear. Sources alternately place the process at the Chirchik City Court in Tashkent Province or the Syrdaria Province Court. Memorial Human Rights Center and the Information Center for Human Rights In Central Asia, List of People Arrested and Tried in Uzbekistan for Political and Religious Reasons (January 1999 to April 2000), Moscow, May 2000; and Hizb ut-Tahrir, March 24, 2000. Inagamov’s case is described in Chapter IV.

¹⁰⁸⁹ Human Rights Watch interview with persons close to Shukhrat Parpiev, names withheld, Andijan, May 18, 2000.

¹⁰⁹⁰ Human Rights Watch interview with Feruza Kurbanova, Tashkent, March 14, 2001

¹⁰⁹¹ Ibid.

¹⁰⁹² Human Rights Watch interview with rights defender Muzafarmirzo Iskhakov, Tashkent, July 7, 2000.

¹⁰⁹³ Ibid.

¹⁰⁹⁴ Ibid.

¹⁰⁹⁵ Human Rights Watch interview with relatives of Tavakkaljon Akhmedov, Asaka, Andijan, May 2000.

¹⁰⁹⁶ Human Rights Watch interview with father, mother, and sister of Komoliddin Sattarov and with rights defender Muzafarmirzo Iskhakov, Andijan, May 17, 2000.

¹⁰⁹⁷ Verdict of the Andijan City Court, issued by Judge M. Kholmatov, June 9, 2000

¹⁰⁹⁸ Human Rights Watch unofficial transcript, Markhamat District Court, Andijan Province, October 18, 2000; Memorial Human Rights Center and the Information Center for Human Rights In Central Asia, List of People Arrested and Tried in Uzbekistan for Political and Religious Reasons (December 1997 to August 2001), Moscow, October 2001.

¹⁰⁹⁹ Human Rights Watch interview with rights defender Muzafarmirzo Iskhakov, Tashkent, April 4, 2001.

¹¹⁰⁰ Ibid.

¹¹⁰¹ Letter to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan from Odina Maksudova, March 29, 2001, provided in English.

¹¹⁰² Ibid.

¹¹⁰³ Ibid.

¹¹⁰⁴ As noted above, in “Family Members: Arrests, House Arrest, Harassment” in Chapter III, the officer Maksudova identified, Edik Tsoi, has been identified by others as involved in the torture of detainees at the Ministry of Internal Affairs and is the subject of numerous complaints by victims of torture. According to rights defender Vasila Inoiatova, the officer was fired along with a large number of other officers from the Ministry of Internal Affairs Department against Corruption, Racketeering and Terrorism in a “purge” of that division in 2002. Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Vasila Inoiatova, March 4, 2003.

¹¹⁰⁵ Letter to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan from Odina Maksudova, March 29, 2001, provided in English. Human Rights Watch informed the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights about the incident on April 2, 2001.

¹¹⁰⁶ In Uzbekistan, amnesties are usually issued on national holidays; while as many as two or even three amnesties may be decreed during a given year, a single amnesty, announced on or around independence day in September, is perhaps most common.

¹¹⁰⁷ Decisions to amnesty a prisoner do not involve review of the grounds for his or her conviction. Because there is no case review that accompanies the amnesty process, law enforcement, procuracy, judicial, and prison officials who committed illegal acts and violated a prisoner’s basic rights are not held accountable for their actions. The police records of convicts released under amnesty are not expunged and police harassment often haunts those released under such provisions.

¹¹⁰⁸ The amnesty refers to such prisoners as “members of terrorist and extremist organizations, criminal associations…those who have committed crimes against the Constitutional order of the Republic of Uzbekistan or other acts against public security covered by articles 150-163, 242, 244, 244-1, 244-2 of the Criminal Code.” Presidential amnesty decree issued on the tenth anniversary of Uzbekistan’s independence, broadcast on Uzbek Television first channel, August 22, 2001, English translation in BBC Monitoring.

¹¹⁰⁹ Decree of the President of the Republic of Uzbekistan on “Amnesty on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of the Constitution of the Republic of Uzbekistan,” December 3, 2002, English translation provided to Human Rights Watch by the Embassy of the Republic of Uzbekistan to the United States.

¹¹¹⁰ U.S. Department of State, 2002 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, released by the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, March 31, 2003.

¹¹¹¹ For example, clause 8 of the 2001 amnesty states, “This decree is not applicable to those convicts who systematically violate the prison rules.” Presidential amnesty decree issued on the tenth anniversary of Uzbekistan’s independence, broadcast on Uzbek Television first channel, August 22, 2001, English translation in BBC Monitoring.

¹¹¹² Clause 10, Presidential amnesty decree issued on the tenth anniversary of Uzbekistan’s independence, broadcast on Uzbek Television first channel, August 22, 2001, English translation in BBC Monitoring; and clause 8, Decree of the President of the Republic of Uzbekistan on “Amnesty on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of the Constitution of the Republic of Uzbekistan,” December 3, 2002, English translation provided to Human Rights Watch by the Embassy of the Republic of Uzbekistan to the United States.

¹¹¹³ See Chapter IV. Human Rights Watch research found that some of those who refused to ask for forgiveness and to recant their religious beliefs were punished by prison guards who placed them in pits, kept them naked in freezing conditions, and deprived them of sleep. “Memorandum on Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) Certification for Uzbekistan,” Human Rights Watch, January 18, 2002.

¹¹¹⁴ Human Rights Watch interview with a released prisoner, name withheld, Margilan, July 12, 2002.

¹¹¹⁵ Letter from a mahalla committee (location withheld) to “G.G.” (recipient’s name withheld, not the person’s true initials), January 4, 2003. Human Rights Watch unofficial translation. The letter is on file with Human Rights Watch.

¹¹¹⁶ Letters from mahalla committees (locations withheld) to “H.H.,” “I.I.,” and “J.J.,” (recipients’ names withheld, not their true initials), dated January 21, 2003, January 26, 2003, January 27, 2003. Human Rights Watch unofficial translations. The letters are on file with Human Rights Watch.

¹¹¹⁷ Human Rights Watch interview with the mother of a religious prisoner, name withheld, Tashkent, January 30, 2003; and Human Rights Watch interview with “K.K.” (name withheld, not the person’s true initials), Tashkent, January 27, 2003.

¹¹¹⁸ Human Rights Watch interview with a friend of a religious prisoner, name withheld, place withheld, January 27, 2003; Human Rights Watch interviews with the father of another religious prisoner, name withheld, place withheld, January 27, 2003, and January 30, 2003; Human Rights Watch interview with the mother of yet another religious prisoner, name withheld, place withheld, January 30, 2003; and Human Rights Watch interview with a human rights activist, name withheld, place withheld, February 5, 2003.

¹¹¹⁹ Human Rights Watch interview with a local rights defender, name withheld, Tashkent, July 1, 2003; Human Rights Watch interview with a second rights defender, name withheld, Tashkent, July 2, 2003; and Human Rights Watch interview with a third rights defender, name withheld, Tashkent, July 3, 2003.

¹¹²⁰ Human Rights Watch interview with Idobat Sultanova, Margilan, July 12, 2002. Sultanova was presumably released around December 2000.

¹¹²¹ Ibid; and letter of April 17, 2002, on file with Human Rights Watch.

¹¹²² Human Rights Watch interview with Idobat Sultanova, Margilan, July 12, 2002.

¹¹²³ Ibid.

¹¹²⁴ Human Rights Watch interview with Farkhod Kodirov, a local National Security Service investigator, Fergana city, July 30, 2002.

¹¹²⁵ Human Rights Watch unofficial transcript, Margilan City Court, Margilan, September 12, 2002; and Human Rights Watch telephone interview with a human rights activist, name withheld, September 13, 2002.

¹¹²⁶ Human Rights Watch interview with rights defender Ismail Adylov, Tashkent, August 5, 2003.

¹¹²⁷ U.S. Department of State, 2002 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, released by the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, March 31, 2003.

¹¹²⁸ Freedom of assembly is guaranteed under Uzbekistan’s constitution; however, citizens must obtain a permit in order to hold public demonstrations. According to the U.S. State Department, “in practice the Government restricted the right of peaceful assembly… and did not routinely grant permits to demonstrators.” U.S. Department of State, 2002 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, released by the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, March 31, 2003. Many people planning public gatherings in support of independent Muslims perceived their chances of obtaining government permission to be slim at best, and so did not apply. Some family members of independent Muslim prisoners had first-hand experience of the state’s harsh reaction against association by independent Muslims and reason to expect a large public assembly would be greeted with similar hostility. Moreover, the secrecy that often surrounded the preparations for such protests suggests that the organizers perceived themselves as being at risk of government retaliation, and feared that, if they drew attention to themselves prior to the event, it would be blocked.

¹¹²⁹ For details on his case, see Chapter IV.

¹¹³⁰ Human Rights Watch interview, name withheld, Tashkent, June 25, 1999.

¹¹³¹ Human Rights Watch interview, name withheld, Tashkent, July 12, 1999; Human Rights Watch interview, Vasila Inoiatova, Tashkent, July 21, 1999; and Human Rights Watch interview, name withheld, Tashkent, February 21, 2000.

¹¹³² Ibid.

¹¹³³ Human Rights Watch interview, name withheld, Tashkent, February 21, 2000.

¹¹³⁴ Ibid.

¹¹³⁵ Human Rights Watch interview with Vasila Inoiatova, July 21, 1999; Human Rights Watch interview with a woman whose two nephews were detained for seventeen days for attending the funeral, name withheld, Tashkent, July 12, 1999.

¹¹³⁶ Human Rights Watch interview with an eyewitness, a rights activist from Andijan, name withheld, Tashkent, April 20, 2001; Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Catherine Davis, BBC correspondent, Tashkent, March 23, 2001; and Bakhodir Musaev, “Uzbeks Losing Patience: Uzbeks take to the streets to air anti-government grievances,” The Institute for War and Peace reporting, April 10, 2001 [online] http://www.iwpr.net/index.pl?archive/rca/rca_200104_47_02_eng.txt (retrieved June 5, 2003).

¹¹³⁷ Human Rights Watch interview with an eyewitness, a rights activist from Andijan, name withheld, Tashkent, April 20, 2001; and Bakhodir Musaev, “Uzbeks Losing Patience: Uzbeks take to the streets to air anti-government grievances,” The Institute for War and Peace reporting, April 10, 2001.

¹¹³⁸ Human Rights Watch interview with an eyewitness, a rights activist from Andijan, name withheld, Tashkent, April 20, 2001.

¹¹³⁹ Human Rights Watch interview with an eyewitness, a rights activist from Andijan, name withheld, Tashkent, April 20, 2001; and Bakhodir Musaev, “Uzbeks Losing Patience: Uzbeks take to the streets to air anti-government grievances,” The Institute for War and Peace reporting, April 10, 2001.

¹¹⁴⁰ Human Rights Watch interview with a rights activist from Andijan, name withheld, Tashkent, April 20, 2001. The head of the provincial court was allegedly removed from his post just days later, on March 26, 2001.

¹¹⁴¹ Ibid. Human Rights Watch has no information confirming Umida’s release. Because the vast majority of arrested demonstrators are subsequently released, we assume she was as well.

¹¹⁴² Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Catherine Davis, BBC correspondent, Tashkent, March 23, 2001.

¹¹⁴³ Human Rights Watch interview with a rights activist from Andijan, name withheld, Tashkent, April 20, 2001.

¹¹⁴⁴ Ibid; and Bakhodir Musaev, “Uzbeks Losing Patience: Uzbeks take to the streets to air anti-government grievances,” The Institute for War and Peace reporting, April 10, 2001.

¹¹⁴⁵ Ibid.

¹¹⁴⁶ Human Rights Watch interview with a rights activist from Andijan, name withheld, Tashkent, April 20, 2001.

¹¹⁴⁷ Bakhodir Musaev, “Uzbeks Losing Patience: Uzbeks take to the streets to air anti-government grievances,” The Institute for War and Peace reporting, April 10, 2001.

¹¹⁴⁸ Human Rights Watch interview with Mahbuba Kosymova, Tashkent, April 26, 2001.

¹¹⁴⁹ Human Rights Watch interview with rights defender Mahbuba Kosymova, Tashkent, April 26, 2001; and Human Rights Watch interview with a diplomat, name withheld, Tashkent, April 2001.

¹¹⁵⁰ Human Rights Watch interview with a diplomat, name withheld, Tashkent, April 2001.

¹¹⁵¹ Human Rights Watch interview with Mahbuba Kosymova, Tashkent, April 26, 2001.

¹¹⁵² Ibid.

¹¹⁵³ Ibid.

¹¹⁵⁴ Human Rights Watch interview with a female protester released from detention, name withheld, Tashkent, July 23, 2002; and Human Rights Watch interview with a local rights defender, Tashkent, July 25, 2002.

¹¹⁵⁵ Human Rights Watch interview with an observer at the scene, name withheld at his request, Tashkent, March 7, 2003.

¹¹⁵⁶ As of this writing, there was no further information regarding the fate of the women.

¹¹⁵⁷ Human Rights Watch interview, name withheld, Tashkent, March 7, 2003.

¹¹⁵⁸ Ibid.

¹¹⁵⁹ As of this writing, Human Rights Watch had no information regarding the terms of their detention.

¹¹⁶⁰ Solaeva told Human Rights Watch that she had traveled to Tashkent on May 27 to speak to officials at the Main Administration for the Execution of Punishments to ask for permission to visit her husband, a prisoner at Jaslyk. When she left that office, she said, officers from the Hamza district police station mistakenly detained her as one of a group of women who were protesting. She told them she was not part of the protest and was released. Officer Mansurov later told Solaeva he had received a telegram from Tashkent saying that she had participated in the protest. Human Rights Watch interview with Nodira Solaeva, Tashkent, July 18, 2003.

¹¹⁶¹ Ibid.

¹¹⁶² Ibid.

¹¹⁶³ This was presumably a reference to Minister of Internal Affairs Zokirjon Almatov.

¹¹⁶⁴ Ibid.

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