Uzbekistan

Torture is a chronic problem, rights activists are languishing in prison and the government has disbarred some of the country’s most outspoken lawyers, says the organisation.

There are concerns that Dzhamshid Karimov’s health may have suffered due to the forced administration of psychotropic medicines during his detention.

ARTICLE 19 welcomes the committee’s conclusion that the procedure for registering the NGO Democracy and Rights violated freedom of expression and association rights.

In a letter to US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, human rights groups expressed concern over proposed legislation to permit military and other assistance to the Uzbek government, one of the most repressive in the world.

Gulbakhor Turayeva was taking a walk near her house with her children when she was approached by two women, accompanied by two men. One of the women asked her if her name was Gulbakhor; when the journalist said yes, the woman attacked her.

The government approved on 5 August the setting up of a “committee of experts on information and mass communication” to monitor the country’s media.

Lola Karimova had sought moral damages against online news agency Rue89 for a May 2010 article that called her the daughter of “dictator Karimov,” and alleged she was “whitewashing Uzbekistan’s image” through charity events.

Norboi Kholjigitov is a longstanding member of the Human Rights Society of Uzbekistan, who defended farmers’ rights in the Samarkand province, helping farmers fight expropriation of their farms.

Tatyana Dovlatova had assisted Russian journalists in the preparation of a news item on the life of Russian people in the former Soviet Republics, which had angered the Uzbek authorities.

Authorities barred Abdumalik Boboyev from traveling to Germany by denying him the exit visa required for travel outside Uzbekistan.

Yusuf Jumaev was arrested in the weeks before the December 2007 presidential election after he called for President Karimov’s resignation.

Lola Karimova was described in a Rue89 article as a “dictator’s daughter” who uses charity events to “whitewash her country’s image.”

The government continues its relentless persecution of human rights activists and others critical of the government.

Groups of women accosted the activists at their homes, screaming insults at them for speaking on the Russian news programme “Special Correspondent”.

For years the government has obstructed the organisation’s work by denying visas and work accreditation to staff, and has now moved to liquidate its office registration, forcing Human Rights Watch to end its presence in Tashkent after 15 years.

CPJ urged the European Commission president to raise Uzbekistan’s grave press freedom conditions in an upcoming meeting with Uzbek President Islam Karimov.