Speech
in pre-sessional meetings on the
Universal Periodic Review
of Human
Rights in Uzbekistan, Geneva 27 March
2013
Nadejda Atayeva,
President of the Association for Human Rights in Central Asia
Dear Sirs,
I am addressing you on my own behalf and at the
request of many Uzbek human rights defenders who continue
to work to protect the victims of human rights violations in our country under
the total harassment by the Uzbek authorities.
I want to tell
you about the practice of torture in Uzbekistan,
the situation in this area is getting worse.
Yes, Uzbekistan
ratified the Convention on the Protection against Torture, Article 235 on the prohibition of
torture was introduced into its Criminal Code. The reports sent by the Government of Uzbekistan to the executive committees of the United
Nations, repeatedly spoke of the need to eradicate the practice of torture. In
reality, the Uzbek authorities only provide training for law enforcement
officers, organise conferences on the study of the experiences of other
countries, indicating the need of additional funding for its penal institutions. Uzbek authorities claim to have conducted 9 criminal cases
against the perpetrators of torture. These data are sent to the UN Committee on
Human Rights, the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child and other UN bodies.
And this figure remained unchanged for the last three years. And, probably, the data takes account of the same 9 cases. Speaking about
the practice of torture, human rights activists say that the situation is
getting worse. It is difficult
to prosecute the perpetrators because authorities do not
want to create the conditions for the investigation of torture.
Courts recognise evidence obtained under torture,
despite the decision of the Supreme Court in 2004 on the inadmissibility of
evidence obtained by illegal means.
Along with these
measures, Uzbekistan created intolerable conditions for independent observers.
Those who criticise the government
and circulate information on torture become the victims of prosecutions and harassment.
In the
past five years more than 200 human rights defenders and independent
journalists were persecuted, including 16 people who are in prison, more than half of them are
serving sentences under the Article
159 (Attempts to Constitutional Order of Republic of Uzbekistan), all of them have been victims of
torture. Hundreds of civil society activists,
who openly expressed their opinions,
were forced to emigrate;
their relatives in Uzbekistan became
victims of repression. Their elderly parents are abused
by agents of the Interior Ministry and National
Security Service, they are forced to give false testimony against their children
who received political asylum. As an example, the
political refugee Hasan Temirov lives in Sweden. In 2012, seven of his close
relatives were detained by the police until the
parents agreed to give them his
Swedish phone number. In the presence of officer of the National Security Services, his mother was
forced to call her son and beg him
to return. There are many such cases; they are the cases, the requests for
extradition of whom to
Uzbekistan were rejected.
The Association
for Human Rights in Central Asia - AHRCA, in the last four years, received more than 20 letters from
prisoners and more than 150 reports of
torture during interrogation and detention. They describe the different methods
of torture and the conditions in which they
are in. The most common methods of torture are sexual
violence, AIDS infection through sexual violence using bludgeon, contracting the tuberculosis through being place with infected prisoners, starvation and punishment with thirst,
limiting access to toilets (many can not stand this torture; they are then placed in solitary
confinement and subjected to public censure),
in the prison Zhaslyk the prisoners are forced to memorise
the works of Islam
Karimov, and so on. The human rights activist write openly about these types of
ill-treatment, but the Uzbek government is not taking any notice of these facts and is busy making official reports on the alleged positive changes in the
country.
The government
does not explain why, for more than 10 years, the 11 UN special
reporter on human rights can not visit Uzbekistan.
The Human Rights Watch is expelled from Uzbekistan.
There is only one conclusion: there is no progress on
protection of human rights in Uzbekistan
And, at the end of my address to you, I
would like to reiterate the recommendations of the UN Committee on Human Rights to the Government of Uzbekistan. These recommendations are not acted upon and thus remain relevant. The
recommendations read:
1) to ensure the investigation by an
independent body in relation to each alleged case of torture;
2) to strengthen measures to combat torture
and other forms of ill-treatment, to end them, to monitor, investigate as
appropriate and bring the perpetrators to justice, to
prevent impunity;
3) to
pay compensation to the victims of
torture and ill-treatment;
4) to provide an audio-visual recording of
interrogations in all police stations and detention centers;
5) on suspicion of an abuse, to provide for special medical and
psychological examinations in accordance with the Manual on the Effective
Investigation and Documentation of Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or
Degrading Treatment or Punishment (the Istanbul
Protocol)
6) to
review all criminal cases based on confessions allegedly obtained through coercive methods and by the use of torture and
ill-treatment, to check for appropriate consideration of these allegations in
order to prevent impunity.
If you have any further question, am ready to answer
them.
Thank you very much for your attention.
