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 (…).
