Central Asia news: Human Rights
06.12.2012 11:47 msk
Human Rights
Uzbekistan
The Uzbek government should unconditionally release all of its political prisoners on the 20th anniversary of the adoption of the country’s constitution on December 8, 2012, human rights groups said today. Freeing the country’s many political prisoners would demonstrate a genuine commitment to Uzbekistan’s much-touted reform process, the groups said. The nine groups are Human Rights Watch, Freedom Now, the Committee to Protect Journalists, the Association for Human Rights in Central Asia, the International Partnership for Human Rights, the International Association for Human Rights Defense “Fiery Hearts Club,” PEN American Center, ACAT-France, and the International Federation for Human Rights.
30.11.2012 00:07 msk
Human Rights
Uzbekistan
Catherine Ashton, the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, visited Kyrgyzstan for the first time on 28 November. Human rights activists have been preparing for her visit in advance. The situation of political prisoners’ situation became the main topic in the messages sent by human rights activists. On 22 November, Human Rights Watch, a leading international human rights organisation, called Catherine Ashton to publically demand the liberation of illegally imprisoned activists, who are languishing in local prisons. Nadejda Ataeva, leader of the Association for Human Rights in Central Asia, based in France, which is at one with HRW’s request, talked about the situation of political prisoners held in Uzbek prisons in an interview with NBC Central Asia. The shortened version of the interview is published on the IWPR website.
29.10.2012 09:48 msk
Human Rights
Kyrgyzstan
On October 25, 2012, the Osh Province Court sentenced 33-year-old Mahamad Bizurukov, an ethnic Uzbek and a Russian citizen, to life in prison. In the second recent case, Niyazaliev was detained by Kazakhstan’s National Security Committee officers on the Uzbekistan-Kazakhstan border in January. He was extradited to Kyrgyzstan in June to stand trial in connection with violence in the Suzak district in June 2010. Prosecutors allege that residents of the district blocked the Bishkek-Osh highway near the Sanpa cotton factory on June 12 and 13, poured fuel oil on the road to slow vehicles, and attacked drivers and passengers. The investigation said that 16 people were killed and two others are missing as a result. In 2011, 18 other people were sentenced to life in prison on charges related to this violence, and one defendant to 25 years in prison. “It is a miscarriage of justice and reeks of revenge when defendants are sentenced to life in prison in unfair trials. Kyrgyzstan’s authorities should immediately review these convictions and ensure that all the defendants’ rights are upheld, especially their right to a fair and impartial trial", Hugh Williamson, HRW Europe and Central Asia director said.
02.10.2012 18:01 msk
Human Rights
Kyrgyzstan
A picket called “Let’s show parliament our teeth” to defend free speech and access to information took place on 1 October 2012 outside the Kyrgyzstan Parliament building. The reason for the action was that Kyrgyzstan’s MPs have attempted to sabotage journalists’ work more than once. Around 70 people gathered by the Jogorku Kenesh (parliament), around 50 of those were journalists from various national and international press outlets. Some even came with small children, whom they could not leave at home. However, not all the media participated and only some covered the event. First, the journalists displayed posters on the parliament fence saying “The cameras see everything, dictaphones hear everything. The truth cannot be hidden!”, “Fergana.ru, NTS, who’s next?!”, “The parliament is beyond conscience and shame”, “The government totally supports the freedom of expression, as long as it is strictly controlled.”
14.09.2012 20:14 msk
Human Rights
Russia
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ.org), a New York based organisation, announced that it has given four journalists, who risked their lives and freedom, to talk about abuses of power and human rights violations in Brazil, China, Kyrgyzstan and Liberia, the 2012 International Press Freedom Award. Azimjon Askarov, journalist and human rights defender, is an ethnic Uzbek from the Southern Kyrgyz town of Jalal-abad, who was sentenced to life in jail on 15 September 2010. He was detained three months earlier on suspicion of organising mass disturbances during the tragic events in Southern Kyrgyzstan and charged with complicity in a police officer’s murder.
03.09.2012 17:17 msk
Human Rights
Uzbekistan
The so called “cotton campaign” is starting at the beginning of September in Uzbekistan, when farmers are not the only ones to go the fields, but also government workers, students and school children. Even if, year after year, the authorities promise that the former will not be doing involuntary free labour, the fate of the state sponsored students or even private company employees, who have had orders from “above”, has been decided. The practice of using city dwellers in agricultural work has been around since Soviet times, but it is difficult to assign it as “the tragic inheritance of homo Sovieticus”. More likely, this practice is reminiscent of a slave-owning system. Maxim Baileys, Fergana’s Tashkent observer, has written a review of this situation.
01.09.2011 15:08 msk
Human Rights
Uzbekistan
Maxim Popov, born in 1982, civil activist, sentenced to seven years in jail in 2009. Freed on June 9, 2011. After serving two and half years in jail, 29-year old psychologist and head of the Isis nongovernmental organization Maxim Popov has been freed. He was sentenced to seven years in jail in June 2009 by the Chilanzar district court in the Uzbek capital, Tashkent. Soon after the verdict, which was not made publicly available, Maxim Popov joined the ranks of the country’s prisoners of conscience, which already included the dozens of rights activists, journalists and dissidents languishing in jail as «enemies of the people of Uzbekistan.»
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