Tajikistan: Release Gravely Ill Activist

Political Prisoner Says Guards Beat Him, Refused Him Medicine

Mahmadali Hayit

(Almaty, March 20, 2019) – The Tajik government should immediately and unconditionally release a seriously ill political activist who says he has been tortured, nine human rights groups said today. The prisoner, Mahmadali Hayit, is deputy head of the Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan (IRPT), the country’s largest opposition party, which was banned by the government in late 2015. 

During a visit on March 9, 2019, Hayit showed his wife, Savrinisso Jurabekova, injuries on his forehead and stomach that he said were caused by beatings from prison officials to punish him for refusing to record videos denouncing Tajik opposition figures abroad. Jurabekova said that her husband said he was not getting adequate medical care, and they both fear he may die in prison as a result of the beatings. Hayit has spent more than three years in prison and is currently being held at detention center (SIZO) number 1 in Dushanbe.

“These disturbing revelations about Mahmadali Hayit’s ill-treatment should jolt all of Tajikistan’s international partners into action,” said Nadejda Atayeva, president of the Association for Human Rights in Central Asia. “We ask diplomatic representatives on the ground in Dushanbe to seek permission to visit Hayit and other prisoners of concern and press for their immediate release.”

The groups are the Association for Central Asian Migrants, the Association for Human Rights in Central Asia, Freedom House, Freedom Now, Global Advocates, Human Rights Vision Foundation, Human Rights Watch, International Partnership for Human Rights, and the Norwegian Helsinki Committee.

Hayit, 62, was arrested in September 2015 on politically motivated charges and sentenced to life in prison in June 2016 following a closed trial. The government banned the Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan and then designed it a terrorist organization in 2015.

Following her March prison visit, Jurabekova told journalists and rights groups that her husband is very ill. Hayit told her that he is held in a “tiny, dirty cell” with other prisoners, and that prison officials have beaten him repeatedly during his three years of incarceration. Hayit said they beat him for refusing to participate in videos falsely incriminating the IRPT chairman, Muhiddin Kabiri, who lives in exile.

Hayit suffers from liver and kidney problems. Hayit also told Jurabekova the prison authorities had denied him access to heart medication that she had brought to the prison and that he thought he had suffered a heart attack on February 6 but received no medical care. He told his wife that he had not reported his treatment earlier because he had thought it might be better for him not to speak publicly about it, but he asked her to make it public now because he believes he may not survive another six months if the abuse continues.

In an opinion released in May 2018, the United Nations (UN) Working Group on Arbitrary Detention called for Hayit’s immediate release because his detention violated Tajikistan’s international human rights obligations. Tajik authorities currently refuse the International Committee for the Red Cross (ICRC) access to prisoners and detainees in the country. Tajik authorities should urgently act on the UN Working Group’s call, allow Hayit access to independent medical assistance. and release him, the organizations said. 

The United States, the European Union, and other key international entities should make unequivocal calls for Hayit’s release and for the release of all others imprisoned in Tajikistan on politically motivated charges, the groups said. They should also request access for diplomatic representatives, including from the UN and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, to visit Hayit in detention. 

International entities should press the Tajik government to uphold its international obligations to respect freedom of association, assembly, expression, and religion and impose targeted punitive measures, such as asset freezes and visa bans, on Tajik government officials responsible for imprisoning peaceful activists, torture, and other grave human rights violations.

“Tajikistan’s international partners should publicly and unanimously condemn this mockery of justice,” said Marius Fossum, Central Asia representative of the Norwegian Helsinki Committee. “Tajikistan’s human rights situation has been spiraling downward rapidly, and Washington, Brussels, and all actors should consider enacting targeted punitive measures unless immediate human rights improvements are made.”

Tajikistan: Activist Forcibly Returned from Russia

Faces Torture, Politically Motivated Prosecution

Opposition figure Sharoffidin Gadoev at a meeting with his relatives in the presence of Tajik Interior Ministry officials in Dushanbe on February 15. © 2019 Tajikistan’s Interior Ministry

(New York) – Tajik and Russian officials arbitrarily detained and forcibly returned to Tajikistan a peaceful opposition activist while he was visiting Moscow, the Association of Central Asian Migrants, Association for Human Rights in Central Asia, Human Rights Watch, and the Norwegian Helsinki Committee said today. 

The activist, Sharofiddin Gadoev, is being held in Tajikistan. The government has issued a series of choreographed videos and photographs designed to show that he “voluntarily” returned. Russian and Tajik officials beat him in Moscow and on the flight to Tajikistan. Gadoev should be released and allowed to return immediately to the Netherlands, his country of legal residence, the groups said.

“No amount of staged videos or photographs will change the awful truth that Tajikistan and Russia have shamelessly flouted their international obligations,” said Steve Swerdlow, Central Asia researcher for Human Rights Watch. “Sharofiddin Gadoev was arbitrarily detained in Russia, beaten, and spirited away to Tajikistan, where he faces trumped-up charges for his peaceful exercise of freedom of expression.”

Gadoev, 33, is a member of Tajikistan’s opposition National Alliance and the former deputy head of the banned Group 24 opposition political movement. On February 15, 2019, Tajikistan’s Interior Ministry announced that he had flown from Moscow to Dushanbe of his own accord to “surrender” to authorities at the airport for various crimes. Gadoev was taken into custody when the plane landed and remains in detention. 

However, each day since, the government has displayed Gadoev in a series of orchestrated videos and photographs where he has been seen meeting with his mother, sister, and other acquaintances. In the videos, Gadoev states that he returned to Tajikistan of his own free will and denounces other opposition figures. 

But Gadoev’s relatives and other sources investigating the case told Human Rights Watch that Russian and Tajik authorities used physical force to detain him in Moscow and forced him onto the plane. They say Gadoev’s statements on camera have been made under duress through physical and psychological pressure.

On February 19, Gadoev’s colleagues published a video recorded earlier by Gadoev in the Netherlands, in which he states:

If you see this video, it means I have been murdered, kidnapped or that I have gone missing…If I suddenly turn up on state television or on YouTube declaring that I am in Tajikistan and that I have returned of my own free will, you must not believe this. I would under no circumstance ever return to Tajikistan of my own free will.

Gadoev was the former deputy to the late head of Group 24, Umarali Kuvvatov, Gadoev’s cousin. Kuvvatov was shot dead in Istanbul in March 2015 under circumstances that pointed to involvement by Tajikistan’s security services. The Tajik government banned Group 24 in October 2014, and later designated it an extremist organization, arresting several members on vague and overly broad extremism charges.

Gadoev has lived in the Netherlands since 2015, where he is a recognized refugee. Tajik authorities have frequently interrogated and harassed several of Gadoev’s family members in Tajikistan as retaliation for his political activism.

On February 13, Gadoev flew from Amsterdam to Moscow with a round-trip ticket for meetings with officials from the Russian government’s Security Council regarding political developments in Tajikistan. Sources investigating the case say that on the afternoon of February 14, Russian security services officials met him at his hotel to drive him to a meeting.

Sources investigating Gadoev’s case learned that Russian security services officers in a second car stopped Gadoev’s car, forced Gadoev into their car, and drove him to Moscow’s Domodedovo airport. Relatives told Human Rights Watch that the officers beat Gadoev in the car.

The Russian officers, avoiding passport control, placed Gadoev on Somon Air, Flight 1223 to Dushanbe. The Tajik airline has links to the family of President Emomali Rahmon. On the flight, Gadoev was accompanied by officers from Tajikistan security services, who beat him and placed a sack over his head. Gadoev was delivered in that condition straight to Tajikistan’s Interior Ministry’s agency for the fight against organized crime early on the morning of February 15.

Since February 15, Gadoev has been in Interior Ministry custody, but also at times in the custody of the security services. Unidentified Tajik officials handed bloodied clothing belonging to Gadoev to his relatives on February 15. On February 20, Gadoev was reportedly transferred to house arrest, but officers from Tajikistan’s Interior Ministry and special forces (OMON) remained with him, and a day later he was moved to an undisclosed location by Tajikistan’s security services. 

The Interior Ministry announced initially that he has been charged with possession of contraband under article 289(1) of Tajikistan’s criminal code and forgery under article 340. On February 21, a Dutch Foreign Ministry spokesperson told Radio Ozodi, the Tajik service of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, that:

[t]he Tajik authorities have confirmed to the Dutch ministry of Foreign Affairs that Mr. Gadoev is in Tajikistan and was arrested on charges of criminal activities. At this time the Dutch MFA investigates whether and how it can assist Mr. Gadoev. We are following the case closely.

The Tajik government has carried out a severe human rights crackdown over the past five years, jailing hundreds of political activists and human rights lawyers and banning opposition parties. Human Rights Watch and the Norwegian Helsinki Committee have documented efforts by Tajik authorities to detain, imprison, and silence peaceful opposition activists and perceived critics at home and abroad. Since 2015, Dushanbe has sought the detention and forcible return to Tajikistan of peaceful political activists in Belarus, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Moldova, Russia, Turkey, and elsewhere.

Russia is a member of the Council of Europe and party to the European Convention on Human Rights, and any involvement of, or acquiescence by, state agents in the extrajudicial transfer of Gadoev to Tajikistan is a serious violation of the convention.

In cases involving unlawful removal of people from Russia, the European Court of Human Rights has warned that:

…any extra-judicial transfer or extraordinary rendition, by its deliberate circumvention of due process, is an absolute negation of the rule of law and the values protected by the Convention. It therefore amounts to a violation of the most basic rights guaranteed by the Convention.

“If Dushanbe wants to be taken seriously, it should stop the smoke and mirrors,” said Marius Fossum, Norwegian Helsinki Committee Regional Representative in Central Asia. “There are troubling questions that Tajik authorities may have ill-treated Sharofiddin Gadoev. Tajikistan’s international partners, including diplomatic representatives on the ground, should seek access to visit with Gadoev and call on the Tajik government to provide him with unimpeded access to an attorney of his choice and visits with family members.”

Providing information on Uzbekistan to the UN Committee against Torture

International Partnership for Human Rights and Association for Human Rights in Central Asia made a joint submission on Uzbekistan to the United Nations Committee against Torture (CAT) to provide input into the Committee’s preparation of the List of Issues that is scheduled to take place in April/May 2019. The Uzbekistani authorities will be asked to provide information on the issues raised in the List and in November/December 2019 the CAT will review Uzbekistan’s compliance with its commitments as a party to the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.

   

The joint NGO submission highlights positive steps the government of President Shavkat Mirziyoyev has taken with regard to torture and other forms of ill-treatment, but it notes that torture and ill-treatment continue to be widely used. A full and transparent process of public accountability for torture and ill-treatment, past and present, is essential to restore public trust in the criminal justice system. Major concerns remain and are outlined in more detail in the submission, for example:

   

Uzbekistan has not ratified the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture (OPCAT) and independent human rights defenders have no access to detention and prison facilities for the purpose of human rights monitoring.

    

Uzbekistan has no independent mechanism tasked with receiving complaints and investigating torture and as a result impunity persists. With the exception of a handful of cases, preliminary investigations into complaints of torture and ill-treatment typically conclude that there is no need for a thorough investigation and the authorities usually do not provide detailed reasons for their decisions.

    

Trials against former officials detained under President Mirziyoyev’s government and accused of torture or ill-treatment, among other crimes, are held behind closed doors. Too little information is publicly accessible about them to build trust in the ability of the criminal justice system to bring perpetrators to justice.

    

The authorities do not consult with independent human rights activists on planned reforms or draft laws pertaining to torture and ill-treatment and have not included them in any of the existing working groups.

   

You can read the submission here.

Zeromax creditors’ claim for Gulnara Karimova’s ill-gotten assets is neither legitimate nor fair

Federal Assembly of Switzerland

Swiss Federal Council

Federal Department of Foreign Affairs (FDFA)

Federal Department of Justice and Police

Task Force on Asset Recovery, FDFA

Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, FDFA

  

Statement by Uzbek civil society activists

We, a group of Uzbek activists, have raised numerous concerns regarding the fate of stolen Uzbek assets owned by Gulnara Karimova. These assets are currently frozen in Switzerland and other European countries. We have made repeated calls for the responsible repatriation of Karimova’s assets to Uzbekistan, under the precondition of anti-corruption reforms to be adopted and implemented in Uzbekistan in the interests of the Uzbek people – the true victims of grand corruption in Uzbekistan. This time, our statement is prompted by another concern: the deepening efforts of Zeromax GMBH’s former creditors to obtain Karimova’s illicit assets as compensation for losses incurred in dealing with Zeromax GMBH. We find these claims to be illegitimate, dubious, and legally questionable.

  

Background to Zeromax GmbH

                           

Zeromax GmbH was initially registered in Delaware, United States as Zeromax LLC and then moved to Zug, Switzerland registering as Zeromax GmhB from 2005, before being dissolved in 2010. Although Zeromax GmbH was legally owned by Mirdjalil Jalalov and his wife, the company received full and exclusive support from the government of Uzbekistan, allegedly due to Gulnara Karimova. With this privileged support, they rapidly acquired highly lucrative deals, assets and preferential business positions in sectors including: oil and gas extraction, transportation and export, cotton and textile industries, manufacture, soft drinks, mining, food processing. Within a few years, Zeromax became the largest investor into Uzbekistan’s economy, with 22 subsidiaries, an operating revenue of $3 billion, and assets of $1.7 billion (2008).  Such a high-level position within the Uzbek economy - a profoundly corrupt environment, deeply embedded within a system of patronage – was impossible to achieve without the Uzbek government’s exclusive support at all levels.  Yet, Zeromax faced challenges from rival groups within the Uzbek ruling elite, notably from the National Security Service. As a result, in May 2010, a Tashkent court seized Zeromax’s assets due of tax defaults, and in October of that year, the company was declared insolvent, with creditors left unpaid.

  

Creditors’ claim

     

Our understanding is that Zeromax’s unpaid creditors have filed a claim with Swiss authorities urging them to allocate $800 million of Gulnara Karimova’s frozen assets (pending their confiscation) to them, in order to compensate for their losses in Uzbekistan. This claim is based on allegations Gulnara Karimova was the beneficial owner of Zeromax.

      

In our view, given the role the government of Uzbekistan played in pushing Zeromax to bankruptcy, the creditors should instead direct their claims to the Uzbek authorities who are responsible for Zeromax’s financial problems. The government allowed Zeromax to take control over one lucrative asset after another but then forced the company to fund expensive projects that had nothing to do with commercial business - construction of the Palace of Forum, a stadium, a sport school, various charitable expenses that were probably forced. These projects ultimately went unpaid by the Uzbek government and were a key reason for Zeromax’s indebtedness.

  

Negligence of Due Diligence, Political Risk and Code of Compliance

    

We believe Zeromax’s creditors were aware of the dubious background of Zeromax. There was sufficient press coverage well before Zeromax’s bankruptcy that linked Gulnara Karimova to Zeromax. It is highly likely the creditors expected preferential business options, a favorable business environment, and lucrative business opportunities, akin to the expectations of telecom companies (TeliaSonera, Vimpelcom and MTS) had when negotiating shadowy deals with Gulnara Karimova.

   

Zeromax’s creditors are yet to publicly disclose their identity and announce their claims against Karimova publicly, likely owing to the circumstances surrounding their relationship with Zeromax. They have not presented any public arguments to support their claims that money was stolen from them, not the Uzbek people. 

   

As members of Uzbek civil society, we have a right to know whether creditors violated the code of compliance and failed to meet integrity standards in pursuing business with the company closely associated with the corrupt presidential family. We demand full transparency and disclosure of all contracts and related communication with Zeromax, as well as convincing responses for the following questions: 

   

• Why were political risks of a company associated with a corrupt regime ignored?

• Why was a comprehensive due diligence assessment not undertaken? A rudimentary assessment using open source data would have unearthed Zeromax’s problematic background.

• Why invest millions in a company with only $20,000 of charter capital, and why not protect their business by properly insuring it against the respective risks?

• It is difficult to imagine the creditors were unaware of the political and due diligence risks of engaging with Zeromax; and the fact that Zeromax was controlled by Gulnara Karimova, not Mr. Jalalov. 

       

Suspicion of Fraudulence

                                                               

There appears to be inconsistencies (to tell the least) with the creditors’ claims. For instance, we have seen an audit report prepared for one of the creditors, the Russian company ETK LLC (in Russian, ООО «ЕТК»). This document prompts us to suspect of an element of fraud in the claim advanced by this company. The report, a copy of which the Swiss authorities are likely to have, stated ETK had claimed $395 million as compensation for the unpaid delivery of steel pipes to Zeromax. It is clear from the report that there was only one contract between ETK and Zeromax (No. T1/67-06) to the amount of $100 million, and that ETK had complained about payment delay under that contract. ETK claims that, despite of having been unpaid for the previous deal, it entered into a subsequent agreement with Zeromax to deliver pipes for $268 million. Yet the report authors present no proper contract nor contract number identifying the agreement. Looks like the second deal has the key hallmarks of a fraudulent scheme similar to the Russian Laundromat: sign a fake contract and claim a refund for not fulfilling it, followed by kickbacks and money laundering through offshore accounts.

       

Although the audit report does not provide the full name of ETK, they can be easily identified as Eurasian Pipeline Consortium, LLC (ООО «Евразийский трудопроводный консорциум»), one of the very few Russian companies selling steel pipes. Interestingly, ETK is in fact re-selling pipes produced by the Khartsyzk pipe plant in Donetsk, a breakaway Ukrainian territory controlled by separatists. A subsidiary of Metinvest, the Khartsyzk pipelie plant is controlled by Ukrainian oligarch Rinat Akhmetov. ETK is owned  by another company with the same name, Eurasian Pipeline Consortium, LLC, whose main owner is  Alexander Karmanov, a shadowy figure close to oligarchs Arkady Rotenberg and Gennady Timchenko, both of whom are subject to US and EU sanctions.

    

Request to Swiss Authorities

                           

We support the Swiss authorities decision to reject the creditors’ claim for Gulnara Karimova’s assets and urge them to maintain this position. As stated, based on the public interest nature of this case, the creditors should provide full public transparency on their past relationships with Zeromax before any compensation deal is considered with the Swiss and Uzbek authorities.

   

We wish to reiterate our call upon the Swiss authorities to return Gulnara Karimova’s assets to Uzbekistan responsibly. This would include a framework, benchmarked against anti-corruption reforms, that aim to eliminate the institutional conditions which permitted corruption in the telecommunication sector before the assets are returned.

  

So far, Uzbekistan has made little to zero progress in Uzbekistan’s anti-corruption reforms; and the telecommunication sector is showing the trademark signs of reoccurrence. The government recently issued a decision to grant only one of Uzbekistan’s three major mobile operators (state-owned UMS) direct access to the World Wide Web, thereby undermining fair competition for other operators in the industry (who can only access the internet via state-run Uzbektelecom). In other sectors, especially the construction industry, we also see risks of corruption and money laundering on the rise. 

  

Governance related problems still remain, which underscore the need for a benchmarked approach to guide the return of stolen assets to Uzbekistan, in order to tangibly reduce the risks of grand corruption, misuse of returned assets and support longer-term initiatives for anti-corruption reforms in Uzbekistan.

   

Nadejda Atayeva, on behalf of Association for Human Rights in Central Asia, Le Mans, France, n.atayeva@gmail.com

Umida Niyazova, on behalf of Uzbek-German Forum for Human Rights, Berlin, Germany, umida.niyazova@gmail.com

Jodgor Obid, Uzbek political refugee, resident of Austria

Dilya Erkinzoda, Uzbek political refugee, resident of Sweden

Alisher Abidov, political emigrant, resident of Norway

Alisher Taksanov, journalist, political emigrant, resident of Switzerland

Uzbekistan: Call for Murad Djuraev to be posthumously rehabilitated

Murad Djuraev

Association for Human Rights in Central Asia (AHRCA), International Partnership for Human Rights (IPHR), Norwegian Helsinki Committee (NHC) and the Uzbekistan-based NGO Restoration of Justice, call for the posthumous rehabilitation of former Member of Parliament Murad Djuraev, on the anniversary of his death. Murad Djuraev spent more than 20 years of his life in prison on politically-motivated charges and died on   4 December 2017, after being released on health grounds. The organizations also urge the Uzbekistani authorities to ensure justice for former prisoners of conscience like Murad Djuraev who were convicted in unfair trials, and ensure accountability for past abuses.

We call on the authorities to facilitate access of Murad Djuraev’s relatives to the court sentences against him and to give them the opportunity to rapidly appeal the sentence imposed on him, and thus clear his name.

• Murad Djuraev

Murad Djuraev worked as chairman of the executive committee of the city council of Mubarek (in

the Qashgardaryo Region of Uzbekistan, near Bukhara), before becoming a Member of Parliament in 1991- 1992. He fell out of favour with President Islam Karimov after he was the first Uzbekistani official to dissolve the Communist Party committee in his city after the Soviet Union collapsed. He believed that only with the active participation of civil society would the abolition of child labor in the cotton sector be achieved in Uzbekistan and highlighted the need for accessible education, as well as about the role of political opposition in political processes. His critical speeches in parliament and his support of the political opposition put him at risk of reprisals and he escaped to Kazakhstan, where he lived in hiding.

On 18 September 1994, Murad Djuraev was abducted in Almaty and subsequently held in the prison of the National Security Services in Uzbekistan, where he was subjected to torture and threats of reprisals against his relatives. He was charged with committing especially grave crimes, including “treason”, “conspiracy to seize power” and “calling for the violent overthrow of the constitutional order or for violating the territorial integrity of the Republic of Uzbekistan”.

On 31 May 1995, the Supreme Court sentenced him to 12 years in prison, but the term was

reduced to nine years under amnesty. Subsequently, his prison sentence was extended no less than four times for “disobeying prison rules” (Article 221 of the Criminal Code of Uzbekistan, in 2004, 2006, 2009 and 2012. He was, for example, accused of “badly cleaning the carrots” in the prison kitchen or “not taking his shoes off when entering the prison quarters”. Each time his sentence was extended just as his term of imprisonment was to end or on the eve of an amnesty announcement.

Following international pressure, he was released in November 2015 in very poor health. With great difficulty, he received a passport and permission to travel abroad for treatment, but died before he was able to leave for a planned operation in Germany. He died on 4 December 2017 at the age of 65.

The process of reviewing the case of Murad Djuraev and other previously convicted civil society activists and prominent public and political figures has not yet begun in Uzbekistan. Even after his death, Murad Djuraev’s children continue to experience discrimination with access to education and employment. His son Abror Djuraev, who works at the hosiery factory at the Mubarek Gas Processing Plant in the Kashkadarya region, is openly referred to as an “enemy of the people” by the deputy director for agricultural work and lost his job last September.

• Ongoing human rights violatins 

Currently, thousands of prisoners are serving prison sentences imposed under the previous and the current regime after being convicted in unfair trials for serious crimes such as “violating the constitutional order” (Article 159 of the Criminal Code), “producing or distributing matrials that threaten public security and order” (Article 244-1) or “establishing, leading or participating in religious extremist, separatist, fundamentalist or other prohibited organizations” (Article 244-2). These articles that are vaguely worded and allow for broad interpretation, have in many cases been misused against critics or perceived government critics, such as Murad Djuraev.

Under President Shavkat Mirziyoyev, over two dozen civil society activists and political dissidents have been released from unjust imprisonment, decisions which have been welcomed by the international community. However, not one of them has been fully rehabilitated and those responsible for their persecution have not been brought to justice. Many suffered torture and other ill- treatment in detention as they were forced to provide false confessions. Yet, the perpetrators have escaped justice and the victims and their families have not received compensation and full redress.