We, representatives of civil society, express concern about yet another prisoner death. Citizen of Turkmenistan Allamurat HUDAYRAMOV died in an institution of the Ministry of National Security of Turkmenistan (hereinafter referred to as MNS).
20.12.23
Turkmenistan: prisoner Allamurat HUDAYRAMOV was subjected to extrajudicial execution
We, representatives of civil society, express concern about yet another prisoner death. Citizen of Turkmenistan Allamurat HUDAYRAMOV died in an institution of the Ministry of National Security of Turkmenistan (hereinafter referred to as MNS).
14.12.23
France illegally deports refugee to Uzbekistan
On November 15,
2023, French authorities deported 39-year-old Mukhsinjon Akhmedov to Uzbekistan
where he is at risk of torture and politically motivated imprisonment, the
Association for Human Rights in Central Asia (AHRCA), the International
Partnership for Human Rights (IPHR) and the Norwegian Helsinki Committee (NHC)
said in a statement today. The forced return of Mr. Akhmedov to Uzbekistan
violates the absolute principle of non-refoulement and is a blemish on France’s
human rights record, the organizations said. Following the return of Akhmedov
to Uzbekistan, the French Constitutional Court ruled that his deportation to
Uzbekistan was carried out illegally.
Law enforcement officials in
France detained Akhmedov, who had resided in France for years, on October 20
and placed him in a detention centre for foreigners. He was wanted by
Uzbekistani authorities for charges of “attempts to the constitutional order”[1], provisions
which are frequently used in cases of politically motivated persecution in
Uzbekistan.
Three weeks after Akhmedov’s
detention, French authorities deported him to Uzbekistan on November 15. His
forced return took place despite the real risk that Mr. Akhmedov will be
subjected to torture and other ill-treatment in Uzbekistan where such treatment
remains a widespread problem – reportedly, at least twelve people have
been tortured
to death in Uzbekistani detention facilities in the last three
years. Because of the risk of torture and ill-treatment, in March of this year the
European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) adopted
interim measures to
prohibit Akhmedov’s forced return to Uzbekistan.
Following
the forced return of Akhmedov to Uzbekistan, the French Constitutional Court
for administrative cases, the Conseil d’etat, ruled on December 7, that his
“removal to Uzbekistan, in violation of the interim measure prescribed by the
European Court of Human Rights, constitutes a serious and manifestly illegal
attack on a fundamental freedom”. The court also ordered the Minister of the
Interior and Overseas Territories and the Minister of Europe and Foreign
Affairs to implement all useful measures as quickly as possible to enable the
return of Akhmedov to France at the expense of the French state. In addition,
the Constitutional Court ordered the French state to pay Akhmedov Euro 3000 in
compensation.
When Akhmedov arrived in
Uzbekistan on November 15, he called his mother from the Taskhent International Airport telling
her not to worry. However, law-enforcement agencies detained him shortly thereafter
and transferred him to a detention facility in the city of Kokand. Following
his forced return, Uzbekistani authorities have brought additional charges
against Akhmedov – he is now charged with production and dissemination[2] of materials containing a
threat to public security and public order, and smuggling[3] and risks up to 20 years’
imprisonment.
At
the time of writing of this press release, Akhmedov’s lawyer had not been granted
access to the materials of the criminal case. He was however able to meet his
client in detention, and during this meeting Akhmedov told him that he has not
been tortured in detention so far. However, the severity of the charges against
him as well as his prior history with torture in Uzbekistan places him at
serious risk of torture and other ill-treatment in Uzbekistan.
Akhmedov
first found himself in the crosshairs of the Uzbekistani authorities in 2015 –
during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan of that year, police raided his home one
early morning and confiscated his cellular phone along with several audio discs
before they placed him in a detention centre in Kokand. Akhmedov later told the
AHRCA that police claimed to have found a video on his confiscated phone
showing a speech by Tahrir Yuldashev – a now-deceased former leader of the
illegal group Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan. Akhmedov claims the officers
themselves must have planted the video on his phone. He also told AHRCA that
police held him for almost three days at this time and subjected him to regular
torture and death threats while trying to force him to incriminate himself and
admit to membership in Hizb ut-Tahrir. Hizb ut-Tahrir is another Islamic group
banned in Uzbekistan, distinct from the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan. Akhmedov
denied all of the accusations which he claims are unfounded.
When
he was released in 2015, Akhmedov went to a medical institution to have the
signs of torture on his body recorded before submitting a complaint to the
prosecutor’s office about torture by the police officers. His complaints however, did not lead to the perpetrators of torture being brought to
justice. Due to the severity of the accusations against him, he decided to leave Uzbekistan and fled to the
Russian Federation in 2016. While in Saint Petersburg, Russia he learned that
Uzbekistani authorities had declared him internationally wanted on charges on
attempts to the constitutional order. Fearing that Russian authorities would
return him to Uzbekistan, he left Russia for Estonia where he spent 18 months
in a deportation camp. Eventually, an Estonian court ruled to release him and
he was granted a work permit. However, in late 2018, he learned that his asylum
application had been rejected, and, once again fearing forced return to
Uzbekistan, he left Estonia for France in 2019 where he resided until his
forced rendition to Uzbekistan in November 2023.
The
organizations issuing this statement are highly concerned about Mr. Akhmedov’s
safety at the hands of Uzbekistani authorities. We fear that he will be
subjected to torture and other forms of ill-treatment in pre-trial detention
and later in prison and that authorities will violate his rights to a fair
trial and give him a decades-long prison sentence on bogus charges. We support the
key points of the ruling of the Conseil d’etat and call on the Government of
the French Republic to take any steps necessary to secure the safe return of
Akhmedov to France, and to implement measures to prevent any similar breaches
of the principle of non-refoulement in the future.
[1] Article 159 of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Uzbekistan: Public
statements to unconstitutional change of the existing state order, assumption
of power, or removal of legally elected or appointed authorities from power, or
to unconstitutional impairment of integrity of the territory of the Republic of
Uzbekistan, as well as dissemination of materials containing such statements
(…).
[2] Article 244-1 of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Uzbekistan: Production or keeping with the
purpose to dissemination of materials that contain ideas of religious
extremism, separatism, and fundamentalism, calls for pogroms or violent
eviction, or aimed at creating a panic among the population (…).
[3] Article 246 of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Uzbekistan: Smuggling, that is carriage
through the customs border of the Republic of Uzbekistan without the knowledge
of or with concealment from customs control, or with using false documentation
or means of customs identification, or jointed with non-declaration or with
declaration under false name of virulent, poisonous, toxic, radioactive,
explosive substances, explosive assemblies, armaments, firearms, or ammunition,
as well as narcotic or psychotropic substances, or materials that propagandize
religious extremism, separatism, and fundamentalism (…).
27.9.23
Civic space under attack in Central Asia: NGOs document key trends as region sees increasing international engagement
IPHR and its partner organisations Kazakhstan International Bureau for Human Rights and Rule of Law, Legal Prosperity Foundation, Turkmen Initiative for Human Rights and Association for Human Rights in Central Asia have prepared an overview of current key concerns regarding the protection of the freedoms of expression, association and peaceful assembly in the five Central Asian countries ahead of the Warsaw Human Dimension Conference, which will be held on 2-13 October 2023 to discuss human rights protection in the OSCE region.
The key trends documented in the NGO briefing include:
• Lack of accountability for serious human rights violations related to the crises seen in Central Asia in 2022, when the authorities employed harsh measures to end mass protests against government policies and ensuing unrest during the so-called ‘Bloody January’ events in Kazakhstan, in the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region (GBAO) in Tajikistan and in the Republic of Karakalpakstan in Uzbekistan. To date, measures taken to investigate allegations of excessive use of force, torture and ill-treatment, and other violations of the rights of protesters during these events, as well as to bring those responsible to justice have lacked independence, thoroughness, and effectiveness, resulting in widespread impunity for serious human rights abuses.
• Persecution of civil society activists, opposition supporters, human rights defenders, journalists, and bloggers who speak out against injustice, criticise government policies and demand transparency and accountability of those in power. The use of criminal prosecution as a tool to intimidate and silence critical voices is of particular concern across the region. This tactic was used during wider crackdowns launched in response to the mass protests seen in Kazakhstan, the GBAO in Tajikistan and Karakalpakstan in Uzbekistan in 2022, but is also used more broadly in all countries of the region, with criminal cases on slander, extortion, fraud, rioting, extremism and other charges initiated in retaliation against those who exercise their freedoms of expression, association, and assembly in peaceful and legitimate ways. It is of serious concern that especially the authorities in Tajikistan and Kazakhstan have misused extremism-related charges to target government critics and that a growing number of bloggers have been singled out for prosecution in Uzbekistan and other countries because of social media posts on issues deemed sensitive by the authorities. Recently, there has been an increase in politically motivated criminal cases in Kyrgyzstan in the context of a worsening climate for free speech, while the authorities of Turkmenistan have sought the forcible return of outspoken activists based abroad, in addition to imprisoning “inconvenient” individuals living in the country.
• Pressure on independent media and restrictions on access to alternative information through the internet. The few independent media outlets that operate in the region, as well as those working for them are subjected to ongoing intimidation and harassment, both on- and offline. There have been several recent government initiatives to shut down independent media services and block access to their sites in Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, a country where the media environment has up until now been more favourable than in other countries of the region. Draft media legislation currently under consideration in Kyrgyzstan, as well as in Kazakhstan threatens to result in increased state control over media operations. Broadly worded restrictions on blogging activities have been initiated in several countries, including Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan and the authorities are misusing the fight against disinformation to stifle free speech across the region. Internet censorship is most pervasive in Turkmenistan where thousands of sites have been arbitrarily blocked and the authorities actively campaign against censorship circumvention tools used to access blocked sites that provide information alternative to that of state-controlled national media.
• Excessive and unjustified restrictions on the operation of independent civil society organisations. An increasing number of NGOs have either been forcibly shut down or pressured to “voluntarily” close in Tajikistan, while several independent human rights groups have been denied registration on technical grounds in Uzbekistan, and not one human rights NGO is registered in Turkmenistan. Draft NGO legislation initiated in Kyrgyzstan mirrors legislation seen in more repressive countries in the post-Soviet region and would – if adopted - undermine the hard-won gains in terms of civil society participation in this country. In particular, foreign-funded NGOs risk being subjected to stigmatisation and excessive state regulation and interference. There are also concerns that a recent government initiative in Kazakhstan to publish a list of foreign-funded NGOs could result in increasing stigmatisation and state control of such groups.
• Practices undermining the right to peacefully protest. Such practices include a court-sanctioned ban on protests that has been in place in central areas of Kyrgyzstan’s capital Bishkek for more than a year; the systematic dispersal of peaceful gatherings held without government approval and the detention of protesters before, during and after such assemblies in Kazakhstan; and measures taken by authorities in Turkmenistan to promptly cut short public expressions of discontent about economic hardships, corruption and other problems.
These issues are covered in more detail in the joint briefing paper, which describes recent developments concerning civic space and freedoms in each of the Central Asian countries, features descriptions of individual cases of concern, and provides recommendations for measures that the authorities of the region should take to improve the situation.
The briefing paper is based on ongoing cooperation between IPHR and its Central Asian partners on monitoring and documenting developments affecting fundamental freedoms in the five Central Asian countries in the framework of the CIVICUS Monitor, an initiative to track and rate civic space across the world. The CIVICUS Monitor currently assesses civic space as ‘’closed’’ in Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, as ‘’repressed’’ in Kazakhstan and as ‘’obstructed’’ in Kyrgyzstan.
Download the joint NGO briefing here
8.7.23
25.6.23
Justice for Torture Victims in Central Asia
“I want justice. A sniper bullet damaged my optic nerve. Later – in pretrial detention, I was beaten so severely over the head that I lost my eyesight – I live in the dark now”.
- acknowledging the scale of the problem of torture;
- publishing comprehensive statistics on cases and investigations;
- allowing independent monitors full access to detention facilities; initiating immediate independent investigations into widespread allegations of torture related to mass protests of 2022 with the participation of international experts and local civil society representatives;
- ensuring genuine cooperation with relevant UN mechanisms and addressing entrenched systemic problems in a transparent manner.
1.6.23
NGOs urge the EU’s Charles Michel to press for accountability for rights violations during Central Asia visit
This week, Charles Michel, President of the European Council will attend a high-level meeting with the heads of the Central Asian States, which will take place in the city of Cholpon-Ata in Kyrgyzstan. Ahead of Michel’s visit to the region, five NGOs sent him a joint letter, urging him to raise key human rights issues with the Central Asian leaders and to insist on concrete human rights progress as a condition for a further strengthening of the EU’s partnerships with the countries of the region.