Uzbekistan

Renowned photographer and documentary filmmaker Umida Akhmedova tells Index on Censorship about her latest run-in with Uzbekistan’s repressive authorities.

The Uzbek government should release all prisoners held on politically motivated charges and commit to ending torture on December 8, 2013, to mark the 21st anniversary of the constitution, Human Rights Watch said today.

Sergei Naumov called a colleague on 21 September to say he had been arrested, but he did not have time to say where he was being transferred. The journalist has covered sensitive stories such as use of forced labour in cotton farming and the region’s environmental problems.

Bobomurad Razzakov has been on trial since 26 August on fabricated charges of “human trafficking” in retaliation for his human rights work.

Solidzhon Abdurakhmanovan has been in prison since 2008 serving a ten-year sentence on a trumped-up charge of drug trafficking; the journalist has a stomach ulcer and his state of health has worsened a great deal in recent months.

On May 13, 2005, hundreds of largely peaceful protesters were killed by Uzbek government forces indiscriminately and without warning. No one has been held accountable for the killings.

Award-winning writer Mamadali Makhmudov was released just days before Uzbekistan’s Universal Period Review process in Geneva, where the country is required to show how far it has met its obligations to uphold human rights, and will be questioned by other UN member states.

United Nations member countries gathering at the Human Rights Council in Geneva under the Universal Periodic Review procedure should seize the opportunity to expose and denounce the ongoing repression in Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan and press for concrete steps to end abuses.

Thank you to all those who signed an on-line letter protesting the ongoing imprisonment of writer Mamadali Makhmudov, who has finally been released from prison upon completion of his 14-year term.

Thank you to all those who signed an on-line letter protesting the ongoing imprisonment of writer Mamadali Makhmudov, who has finally been released from prison upon completion of his 14-year term.

Speculations about Islam Karimov’s health have surged since the president has not been seen in public for a week. The lack of clear-cut information about his well-being exposes the dire state of press freedom in the country.

Nine human rights NGO’s, including IFEX members Human Rights Watch, the Committee to Protect Journalists, and PEN American Center, came together to urge Uzbek President Islam Karimov to demonstrate a genuine commitment to Uzbekistan’s much-touted reform process by including political prisoners in an anticipated amnesty for Constitution Day.

Gulshan Karaeva says the attacks are in retaliation for refusing to become a government informant.

In 2006, Alisher Karamatov was arrested, tortured in custody and forced to confess to politically-motivated charges, then sentenced to nine years in jail.

A court in the Tashkent district of Hamza recently convicted independent journalist Viktor Krymzalov in connection with an unbylined article on the Centrasia.ru independent news website which the plaintiff “assumed” he wrote. No evidence was presented to support the assumption.

CPJ is outraged by the politically-motivated new sentence handed to Muhammad Bekjanov, who has been in prison since 1999 on trumped-up charges.