On the Uznews.net article: “Uzbek Religious Refugees: Pity Them or Fear Them?”

Twenty-nine Uzbek asylum seekers were arrested in Kazakhstan in June, 2010 on an extradition request from the country’s neighbour Uzbekistan. Seventeen of them were stripped of their status as UNHCR asylum seekers in August and face ill treatment, unfair trials and  possibly torture upon extradition to Uzbekistan. On November 1, Uznews.net published an article on these cases headlined “Uzbek Religious Refugees: Pity Them or Fear Them?”

No court has yet established the guilt of the Uzbeks in question, yet the article was written in an obviously accusatory tone. This is a classical example of violation of the presumption of innocence. The article provided no critical analysis of Kazakh immigration officials’ allegations that the detainees pose a threat to Kazakhstan’s national security yet the story's authors did criticize human rights defenders, who according to the story, failed to mentioned that the 29 detainees were "Islamic fundamentalists."

A campaign in defense of the refugees arrested in Astana was launched after the UNHCR refused to provide them with a lawyer for three months. Meanwhile, Kazakh prosecutors ordered detention facilities to prepare the inmates for extradition. Not all relatives have been allowed to visit the detainees and care packages and visitation rights are being restricted.

Meanwhile, evidence has emerged that some of the detainees may have been tortured in custody. This is not the first time Kazakhstan has complied with questionable Uzbek extradition orders. In November, 2005 Kazakhstan repatriated ten Uzbeks that were under its custody. All were subject to torture and given long-term prison sentences in Uzbekistan. They were coerced through torture to testify agains Imam Obdhon Qori Nazarov as well as people who had attended his sermons before the Imam himself fled Uzbekistan. The Imam and his sympathizers have been accused of "terrorism," a charge often used agains pious Muslims who don't adhere to government-backed mosques and preachers.

On the basis of testimony obtained through torture Uzbekistan sent extradition requests to Kazakhstan and Ukraine in June 2010 for a number of Muslim refugees residing in those countries. The request was followed up with a series of arrests of Uzbek refugees by Kazakh and Ukrainian law enforcement agencies.

In March 2010, the Human Rights in Central Asia Association received several reports from Uzbekistan that refugees extradited from Kazakhstan to Uzbekistan in 2005 underwent torture after being sent home. In April 2010, state-owned Uzbek television station Uzbekistan released a documentary titled Khunrezlik (Bloodshed) accusing Imam Obidkhon Qori Nazarov and his followers of terrible crimes. It was clear that the documentary was filmed on orders from the Uzbek National Security Agency (SNB). We have drawn parallels between Khurezlik and the article that appeared in Uznews.net. Their similarity lies in an shared prejudice against Obidhon Qori and his associates.


The Uznews.net story endorsed the actions of the Kazkah authorities by claiming that the detainees were Islamic fundamentalists. However, Islamic fundamentalism is not a term used in international law or any national law that corresponds to international standards. Hate speech  and incitement of violence are recognized in law as crimes but none of the Uzbek refugees have been accused of either. Nor has any evidence been brought forward that would suggest they are complicit in incitement of violence or hatred.

One may like or dislike the views of the Uzbek Muslims detained by the Kazakh authorities. But human rights, including the right to a fair trial, should be protected regardless of political and religious affiliation. If the detainees are suspected of wrong-doing they are still entitled to a legal defense and a fair trail, neither of which is guaranteed in Uzbekistan.

The article's author points to the fact that the wives of the asylum seekers wore traditional Muslim head scarves as a criticism. But if there is no evidence that the women were forced to wear the head scarves such commentary is both inappropriate and irrelevant and serves only as a tasteless justification of the Kazakh authorities actions. We would happily condemn those who force women to wear traditional Islamic garb if there is evidence of this taking place. Uznews.net has presented no such evidence.  One of the detainees wives, who was given her husband's clothes for washing by prison officials, notices stains that resembled blood on a shirt.

Police in Oslo have a accused a trio of asylum seekers in Norway of attempting to blow up oil platforms as well as attacks on a Danish cartoonist who drew pictures of the prophet Mohammed. The accused are Muslims hailing from China, Iraq and Uzbekistan. The defendant from Uzbekistan denies the charges and a Norwegian court has not yet ruled in the case. However Uznews.net along with a  number of other internet publications have ambiguously linked the case to the arrest of the Uzbek refugees in Kazakhstan and further tarnished their reputations without questioning Kazakh assertions that the "group of Uzbeks belong to banned Islamic organizations and represent a threat to national security."

The Kazakh and Uzbek security services have used everything at their disposal to produce negative coverage of the Uzbek asylum seekers. Uznews.net appears to be part of this negative information campaign. Its editor, Galima Buharbaeva should expect to be rewarded handsomely for her efforts.

The refugees' efforts, however, to use international protections in their defense were also viewed negatively by the authors of the Uznews.net article. "How do we deal with Uzbek refugees who have radical Islamic ideas and only mention secular democratic principals when their own rights and freedom are under threat?  This question is more difficult than ever to answer," Uznews.net wrote.

Should this be interpreted as a call to forgo international law when dealing with the "bad guys" who, it stands to reason, deserve to be sent into the arms of dictators like Islam Karimov for re-education?

The answer is of course very simple: Every refugee deserves protection from forcible extradition, in accordance with international law. Even if the refugees violated the law and belong to banned groups, they still have the right to an independent and fair trail, protection from torture and ill-treatment, and access to a legal defense.

Association for Human Rights in Central Asia

Centre MBE 140, 16, rue de Docteur Leroy, 72000 Le Mans FRANCE

Tel.: +(33) 6 49 38 86 59; E-Mail: asiecentrale@neuf.fr

Teacher’s Day in Uzbekistan: Just another day of slave labour in the cotton field for teachers and school children

Every year Uzbekistan marks Teacher’s Day on October 1st. The country’s president Islam Karimov again promised to raise teachers’ salaries in a speech on the eve of the holiday. But the reality is that just as in the rest of the autumn, teachers and their pupils marked this holiday by picking cotton in the fields.

In all three provinces of the Fergana valley students ten years and older as well as adults have been mobilized to pick cotton since the middle of September, according to our correspondents in the area. Below is one of the latest letters we have received from Uzbekistan from a mother of two 12 and 13-year-old children.

“…One week had not passed since the beginning of the school year when children were sent into the fields. On Friday, they picked cotton all day although it was Teachers’ Day. Their teachers were with them. They were picking cotton on Saturday and Sunday too. The children have hardly enough time to do their schoolwork. Children from the younger years aren’t being sent out yet, but the older kids from grades 7, 8 and 9 were sent out and sleep [at the cotton picking sites]. Those poor kids had to walk to the fields and spend the whole day with their backs bent picking cotton. After work they had to walk home from the fields. The children are fed with noodles and sometimes Shavlya [Rice porridge with vegetable] without meat. They are half starving. Their nerves are frayed. There is no money for transport and the kids have to walk. Poverty is everywhere. At least the weather is holding out. The children used to dream about who they wanted to be when they grew up. Now all they talk about is where they will go after school to earn money.

 

“The parents have been forced to give written permission to allow their children to pick cotton. And everything is made to look like the children are going of their own will and the parents are not against it. Everyone is scared. If they try to stop their kids from going to pick cotton, the Makhala committee for welfare benefits will stop payments. Our children are growing up without rights; some of their parents are [political] prisoners and are being raised by their grandparents. If you try speaking out they will take you away and no one will find you. And what are they saying in the West? Do they know that the children are in the fields? The changes have been minimal. They used to just make everyone go into the fields openly [without any formalities] and now they get written permission, they make threats so that people don’t talk and send the kids to the fields anyway.”

 

Uzbekistan will hold its 6th annual international cotton fair in Tashkent on the 13th and 14th of October. Association "Human Rights in Central Asia" would like to call the attention of participants in the trade fair to the fact that the use of children in the cotton sector has not stopped.

 

We call on the European Union, the governments of democratic countries and UNICEF to press for the rights of children in Uzbekistan to be guaranteed. mother of two 12 and 13-year-old children.

 

 

Kyrgyzstan: a film about violent murders is being sold in osh for 1 usd

Radical nationalism manifestation in Southern Kyrgyzstan

A DVD, contents of which is flooded with episodes of violence, consequences of  recent  inter ethnic conflict and nationalistic statements, is openly being sold in Osh for 1USD.  This film is distributed on the Western market of Osh. The information obtained by our organisation says the market is fully controlled by mayor of Osh city. We call The Prosecutor-General’s  office to ban  the distribution of such a video recording.

The DVD has erotic images on the cover, however, the contents of the DVD has nothing to do with the cover image. The first video shot starts with the headline: «Tragic events from 10.06.2010 11.06.2010 in Osh, Kyrgyzstan. Separatist Uzbeks were brutally and violently killing innocent Kyrgyz people!!! ”

The photos and the video shots are accompanied by nationalistic statements, directed against ethnic Uzbeks, for almost one hour. These videos are far from being amateur recordings, they all are the materials of law enforcement agencies. The scenes were recorded on the crime spots, morgues, hospitals and other institutions with limited access.

The rumours about new upcoming slaughter have been spreading in Osh.  The wave of refugees revived again. In public transport and other public places Uzbeks are being openly threatened by people who look like ethnic Kyrgyz.  Uzbeks are warned to be cut into pieces if they don’t leave “Kyrgyz land” within five days. The school attendances have dropped from 30 to 4 pupils per class.

A local woman, with trembling voice, said: “There are a lot of strangers in the town again!” and begged to save at least her children. Our sources also report that many people from different parts of Kyrgyzstan simultaneously arrived to Osh.

The local residents do not believe that peacekeepers would ever arrive, they also lost their faith in completion of their houses before winter, or establishment of justice by the authorities.

The Association for Human Rights in Central Asia calls the Prosecutor-General of Republic of Kyrgyzstan to suppress illegal and incorrect actions of those, who spread information that feeds inter-ethnic conflict.

 

 

Prisoners’ mental diseases resulting from torture

Djamoliddin Karimov, born in 1977, was sentenced to 18 years of imprisonment under article 159 of the Criminal Code of Uzbekistan. He has been serving his sentence since October 25, 2001. He was in colony (prison) №64/29 in Navoi, then he was transferred to colony №64/71 in the settlement of Jaslyk in Karakalpakistan where he stayed until August, 2004. There he was sentenced under article 221 of the Criminal Code of Uzbekistan, his term of imprisonment increased to three years. Then he was sent to the Andijan prison camp. Until May 2007 he was in colony №64/36 in Navoi. Since May 2008 he has been serving a sentence in colony №64/71 in the settlement of Jaslyk in Karakalpakistan.

In 2003, when Djamoliddin Karimov served time in colony №64/71 he was beaten by officers in the colony. They battered him all over his body, including his heels. As a result he received fractures to both arms. To treat the fractures they installed a metal pin in Karimov’s shoulder joint. It needed to be removed after six months. They did not remove the metal pin in time. Nearly a year after being put in it caused inflammation, then suppuration, and part of the metal pin came out. Doctors performed an operation to remove the metal pin, but without anesthesia.

Djamoliddin Karimov lost his sanity because of the pain. His two sisters visited him recently. Karimov did not recognize them. He neither slept nor ate during the visit. According to the sisters of Djamoliddin Karimov he wore the same clothes that had been put on him a few months ago during their previous visit. They said that Karimov had become aggressive and totally insane. When he has an attack of raving madness, neither the guard nor doctor approached him. His cellmates stop his attacks by kicking him because he does not let them sleep; the prison guards also beat him. The best that can happen is for the doctor to give him two tablets for tuberculosis- instead of a sedative drug.

We know that Ulugbek Sirodazimov, born in 1971, is serving a sentence in colony №64/36. As a result of torture he suffers from a mental disorder. Sirodazimov was convicted under article 159 of the Criminal Code of Uzbekistan.

Several prisoners in colony №64/71 in the settlement of Jaslyk have mental disorders, but we can not yet establish their names because such information is being blocked in every possible way. One of the most terrible kinds of torture there is infecting prisoners with HIV by raping them with an infected stick.   

A teacher beat a schoolchild. A child need help!

On April 20, 2009 at school № 10 of Tashkent region, Tashkentskaya oblast, the teacher of geography Kamila Tashmuhammedova beat the 6-grade student Shuaipa Erdonov, born in 1996. The teacher grabbed the child by his shoulders and hit the back of his head against the school board, several times and with all her might. At the same time she insulted him and called “terrorist”.

Shuaipa Erdonov’s
photo before

On April 20, 2009 at school № 10 of Tashkent region, Tashkentskaya oblast, the teacher of geography Kamila Tashmuhammedova beat the 6-grade student Shuaipa Erdonov, born in 1996. According to narration of the victim’s mother, the teacher grabbed the child by his shoulders and hit the back of his head against the school board, several times and with all her might. At the same time she insulted him and called “terrorist” stressing that he was the son of Shuhrat Erdonov, born in 1972, who was sentenced in 1999 to10 years of imprisonment under article 159 of the Criminal Code of Uzbekistan and got another 4 years of imprisonment added in 2006. Toward the evening Shuaipa Erdonov had a swelling on his head, his temperature rose and he had nausea. A day later he started to lose sight in both eyes. Soon the child had a nervous muscular twitching (tic) from his right cheek to ear, and he had his lips curved. The medical examination confirmed that previously he had no head injuries and those symptoms. According to information as of February 1, the boy lost sight in one eye, and he had only 20% of sight in the other eye.

The victim’s mother filed a complaint against Tashmuhammedova in the Tashkent city department of internal

Shuaipa Erdonov’s
photo after 

affairs. When the teacher learned about complaint, she went to the hospital. Using her corrupt relations, she agreed with doctors, as well as representatives of the law enforcement and judicial bodies. Consequently the results of medical examination were fabricated, from which it followed that the student's mother beat the teacher. However, they never met before filing a complaint.

Officers of the investigating authorities, who dealt with complaint of Shuaipa’s mother, told her to reconcile with Tashmuhammedova. They told her that otherwise her husband’s term of imprisonment would be increased and she would be evicted from mahalla. Under pressure of the district authorities, parents of her husband threw her and her two young sick children including Shuaipa out of house. Erdonova does not have her own house. She has to live with her children at friends’ place.

Because of the threats and moral and psychological pressure Shuaipa Erdonov’s mother was forced to come to “reconciliation”. State bodies had not tried to investigate this case and protect the rights of the child. As a result the victim Shuaipa Erdonov was left without timely and necessary medical care. His mother does not have means for treatment of her sick son.

Statement for Protection of Honor and Dignity of Uzbek People

To: Environmental Justice Foundation - EJF

Slave Nation: report from
the Environmental Justice Foundation
2010

On February 22, 2010, the Environmental Justice Foundation published a new report entitled «Slave Nation» on the continuing practice of forced child labour in Uzbekistan, and the ongoing deception on part of the government of Uzbekistan with regard to this practice. Although this report is extremely valuable and praiseworthy in terms of its content, we consider its title to be highly inappropriate, and indeed an insult to the Uzbek nation. We hereby request, and indeed insist, that the title be changed and that EJF apologize for the poor judgement shown in the original title.

 

EJF has done a great deal of work to protect of the rights of Uzbek children, who are being cruelly exploited by the Uzbek authorities through the cotton campaign. The awful effects of forced child labor led a group of Uzbek activists to start a campaign «For the Abolition of Forced Child Labour in Uzbekistan». This campaign has received a great deal of publicity and outreach and has been supported by thousands of Uzbek citizens.

 

We are grateful to all those who have supported our calls to stop forced child labour in Uzbekistan, and for the work that EJF has done and continues to do in this regard. But we hope that EJF will act as we have suggested in order to show its respect to the feelings of Uzbek people.

 

On behalf of the Coalition:

Nadejda AtayevaPresident of the Association for Human Rights in Central Asie
Centre MBE 140, 16, rue de Docteur Leroy, 72000 LE MANS FRANCE Tel.: +33613414070; Fax: + 33243396640; E-mail: asiecentrale@neuf.fr

Shahida Tulaganova
Director, Uzbekistan Initiative London
76, Wellington Court, Wellington Road, London NW8 9TD, UK
Tel.: +447809545909; E-mail: uil@uzbekistaninitiative.com

Jodgor Obid
Project officer of the Association Petition pour l'Asie Centrale
Tel.:+43131682269; E-mail: jodgor.obid@gmx.at 



 

Uzbekistan’s 2009 cotton harvest is in, but at what price?

The country’s top leadership has issued the list of the leading cotton producing districts in this year’s harvest.  Among them are the Gurlen district of Khorezm province and the Ellikkalin district of the Autonomous Republic of Karakalpakstan.  Below for a selection of the evidence of forced labour in these and other districts, as well as information on cases of illness and even death resulting from the state’s poor organisation of harvest labour.

October 2009

Three hundred fifty medical workers split into six groups took part in harvesting cotton in Yangibazar district of Khorezm region. They were ordered to pick a quota of 60 kg each per day, totalling over 15 tons daily.  One hundred fifty of the medical workers from the Yangibazar district central hospital were assigned to one Yangibazar farm alone; they were under obligation to gather 120 tons of cotton.  During the course of their work there were cases of fevers and intensified chronic illnesses among the rural residents picking cotton in the same fields.  That segment of the population generally does not have money to purchase medications or to see doctors, which aids in spreading colds and other viruses throughout the villages.  At the same time, since medical personnel are distracted from their primary occupation in the autumn [when they are out picking cotton], the level of care provided to patients with infectious diseases is lowered.

*     *     *

On 13 October an employee of the Khorezm Oncological Centre, G.U. (name withheld to protect the victim’s privacy), born in 1982, was beaten, robbed and raped on her way home from picking cotton in the Urgench district.  At 7 pm she was walking home in an unpopulated area along the highway when she was attacked by an unknown man, 25 kilometers from the centre of Urgench.  She was hospitalized in critical condition.

Usually G.U.’s husband walked her home from work, but, he could not on that day.  After this incident her husband’s family cut off any contact with G.U.  In Uzbekistan, especially in rural areas, because of certain cultural and religious traditions and the mentality, the victim is usually blamed in these circumstances, which only intensifies her trauma. Her husband had previously requested that her employer, the Oncological Centre, exempt her from picking cotton, but the Chief Doctor (Svetlana Ibragimova Palvanova) refused, citing the need to fulfil the district governor’s instructions to mobilize all workers to harvest the cotton.

The local police detained the suspected attacker shortly thereafter, and are currently investigating the crime.

The victim continues to experience traumatic effects, the future impact of which is difficult to predict.  Nevertheless, G.U. is not planning to sue her employer who failed to provide safe conditions during the work day.  Labour law requires that employers must supply workers with transportation if those workers are required to carry out tasks that require supplemental transport to different worksites. However in Uzbekistan very few workers are aware of their rights set out in collective bargaining agreements or even in national legislation.  There is a high level of unemployment in the country and so many citizens withstand unbelievable humiliation just to preserve their jobs.  Enterprise directors prefer to follow the unwritten directives of their superiors, as the experience shows, for the very same reason-to preserve their own jobs, which confer status in society and material benefits.

The management of the Khorezm Oncological Centre is doing its utmost to prevent the discovery of any written orders given to the victim regarding the cotton harvest.  It seems, therefore, that no one is planning to compensate the victim for her physical and moral suffering…?

*     *     *

A cotton-harvest related automobile crash in the Urgench district of Khorezm province on October 26 took the life of a 28 year old doctor.  A bus carrying employees of the Urgench Central District Hospital was returning from the cotton fields when it was struck in the side by a wagon carrying cotton which had uncoupled from its tractor on a poor stretch of the road.  In addition to the doctor, two hospital employees were hospitalised in critical condition and two other bus passengers were injured.

*     *     *

The Association “Human Rights in Central Asia” has concluded that the organisers of this year’s cotton harvest were not able to provide workers with free choice of employment or with fair conditions of employment, as laid out in article 37 of the Constitution of Uzbekistan.

The Republic of Uzbekistan Labour Code, which came into force on 1 April 1996, contains more than thirty articles directly related to workers’ protection.  For example, article 241 forbids persons younger than 18 years of age from engaging in work that is harmful to health.  This national norm applies not only to those up to the age of 15 (as specified in the Law on Guarantees of the Rights of Children), but covers fully all persons up to the age 18.

The last list of territories where work conditions are prononced harmful to health was promulgated by the government in 1996; the lack of a current list prevents persons living and working in those zones from receiving state benefit payments.

 

Labour unions in the country are completely inactive, playing very little role in relations between employees and workers.  It is noteworthy that the chairman of the Federation of Labour Unions of Uzbekistan serves at the same time as a member of the government.  This crudely violates the fundamental principles of organizing a labour union – the independence of unions from the executive branch of the government, from local government, and other social and political groups.  It is for this reason that the Federation of Trade Unions of Uzbekistan is still not accepted as a member of the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC).

 

*     *    *

Members of the Association have documented photographically the use of forced child labour in those regions praised as “first rate” cotton producers by the government, including the Gurlen district of Khorezm province.  In the Ellikalin district of the Autonomous Republic of Karakalpakstan, young people worked in fields sprayed with toxic chemicals, and as a result, many of them contracted intestinal illnesses.  Medical offices have refused either to register those illnesses or to document their likely cause.

© Association for Human Rights in Central Asia

 

© Association for Human Rights in Central Asia