Prison authorities in Uzbekistan have placed Muhammad Bekjanov, one of the world’s longest-imprisoned journalists, in solitary confinement, the Association for Human Rights in Central Asia (AHRCA), Freedom House, Human Rights Watch, International Partnership for Human Rights (IPHR), the Norwegian Helsinki Committee, Reporters Without Borders (RSF), and the Uzbek–German Forum for Human Rights (UGF) said today.
Bekjanov, 62, has been
in prison for 17 years, and the move could be a sign that the government is
preparing to extend his prison term yet again. He is in very poor health and
his condition could decline rapidly in solitary confinement, the groups said.
The Uzbek government and President Shavkat Mirziyoyev should ensure his
immediate and unconditional release.
“Muhammad Bekjanov’s solitary confinement is an ominous sign
that causes us to fear that his health could deteriorate and that his sentence
could be extended again,” said Nadejda Atayeva, the head of the AHRCA. “The
international community must do everything in its power to save him.”
The onetime editor of
what was Uzbekistan’s leading opposition newspaper, Bekjanov has been
imprisoned since 1999. He was awarded Reporters Without Borders’ Press Freedom
Prize in 2013.
He is being held in
Prison No. 48, in Zarafshon, in the central Navoiy region. When his brother,
Jumanazar Bekjanov, tried to visit him there on December 13, 2016, prison
officials said he was in solitary confinement and would not be able to receive
a visitor until January 10, 2017. No one at the prison would say how long he
had been in solitary or why he was being held there.
The sentences of
political prisoners are often arbitrarily extended in Uzbekistan on the ground
that they allegedly violated article 221 of the criminal code by “refusing to
comply with the prison administration’s legal requirements.” These additional
sentences are typically imposed on the basis of false testimony and without due
process. Prisoners can be given successive sentence extensions that in practice
amount to life in prison.
Bekjanov, who has a
wife and three children, has already been a victim of this practice. He was
given an additional sentence of four years and eight months in February 2012,
just days before he was due to be released.
“The Uzbek authorities have already stolen Muhammad
Bekjanov’s health and 17 years of his life,” said Johann Bihr, the
head of RSF’s Eastern Europe and Central Asia desk. “How much more time will
they continue to persecute this journalist, whose only crime was to have done
his job in an honest and courageous manner?”
The groups also noted
that an amnesty passed by the Uzbek senate on October 12 applies to prisoners
over the age of 60 and should therefore be applicable to Bekjanov, who ought to
be freed without delay. However, political prisoners have usually been excluded
from the amnesties that have been issued in recent years.
“The immediate release of Muhammad Bekjanov and others
imprisoned for the exercise of freedom of speech, would be a positive sign by
the new president, Shavkat Mirziyoyev, that he is looking to pursue reform and
reverse Uzbekistan’s terrible human rights record,” said Steve
Swerdlow, Central Asia researcher at Human Rights Watch. “It would show that
Uzbekistan’s new leader is willing to end impunity for the abuses committed
during Islam Karimov’s long reign,” added Brigitte Dufour, director of
IPHR.
As the editor of Erk (Freedom) in the early 1990s,
Bekjanov tried to initiate a debate on such taboo subjects as the state of the
economy, the use of forced labor in the cotton harvest and the Aral Sea
environmental disaster. His brother, the well-known poet and government
opponent Muhammad Salikh, was the only person to run against President Karimov
in the December 1991 election.
Karimov took advantage
of a series of bombings in Tashkent in 1999 to silence outspoken critics by
prosecuting them as accomplices to the attacks. Like many pro-democracy
activists, Bekjanov was tried in this way and sentenced to 15 years in prison. Yusuf Ruzimuradov, a fellow Erk journalist who was arrested at the
same time as Bekjanov, is also still in jail.
Bekjanov has been
repeatedly tortured in prison. He has lost many teeth and much of his hearing
as a result of mistreatment and a serious case of tuberculosis that was left
untreated for a long time.
In recent years, he has
suffered from intermittent acute pain as well as permanent discomfort from an
inguinal hernia that developed when he was assigned to prison work making
bricks. He has refused to undergo an operation because operations in prison are
usually carried out with no anaesthetic and little hygiene.
After repeatedly
refusing to allow the lawyer appointed by his family, Polina Braunerg, to see
Bekjanov, the prison authorities finally told her earlier this year that she
needed to show a letter from him requesting her visit. But this is impossible
because he does not know that she is acting as his defence lawyer.
Braunerg is herself now
being harassed by the authorities. She has been constantly followed for the
past two years or so, and has not been allowed to travel abroad for medical
treatment.
Uzbekistan is ranked
166 out of 180 countries in RSF’s 2016 World Press Freedom Index. At least nine
other journalists are currently jailed in Uzbekistan connection with their
work. Many opposition politicians, human rights defenders and other civil
society representatives languish in prison, along with thousands of people
arbitrarily accused of “religious extremism.”
Islam Karimov, who
ruled Uzbekistan from independence until his death in August, was succeeded by
former Prime Minister Shavkat Mirziyoyev after an election that the
Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe said was “devoid of genuine
competition.”
