The Association for Human Rights in Central Asia, Restoration of Justice and International Partnership for Human Rights are pleased to report that on 18 September 2018 Agzam Turgunov was finally given permission to leave the country from the Ministry of Internal Affairs Passport and Visa office of Almazarsky district in Tashkent. He had applied for permission to leave the country (also known as an “exit visa”) on 16 August 2018 but on 31 August he was informed by a representative of OVIR that he had been refused. He was told that he would receive a written reply stipulating the grounds for the refusal within a month. See: "Uzbekistan – human rights defender Agzam Turgunov fined and refused an exit visa".
Instead of the written reply, he was given permission to leave on 18 September. Unfortunately this was too late to allow him to attend the Human Dimension Implementation Meeting organized by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe in Warsaw, where he was due to speak.
In Uzbekistan, former prisoners are sometimes required to register weekly with the local police station for a maximum of one year after they are released from detention and during this time they are not allowed to travel abroad. However, Agzam Turgunov was not asked to do this. He was released from detention in July 2017.
