Disregard for human rights in Uzbekistan
cat | 04.10.2006 14:16 | Social Struggles | World
Since May 2005, the Uzbek government has stepped up its campaign to halt political dissent. When unarmed protesters gathered on 13th May 2005 outside a prison in the city of Andijan, government forces opened fire, killing at least 250 people (Eyewitness estimate). Many human rights workers, businessmen, journalists and opposition leaders have been put on trial since, either for speaking out against the violence or appearing on trumped up “economic charges” designed to extract money from the President Islam Karimov’s opponents. The BBC no longer has a base in Uzbekistan, and many NGOs have been forced to leave the country.
One of the most shocking of the post-Andijan trials is the case of Sanjar Umarov, Chairman of the Sunshine Coalition, an alliance of opposition parties. He returned from the US in 2005, only to be arrested at Tashkent airport, tried in a closed court, and drugged in a concrete cell for two weeks without access to legal representation. After being sentenced to a ten year prison term, Umarov has now been transferred to a penal colony near the southern Uzbek city of Bukhara. His family and his lawyer have been consistently denied access to him. This is a contravention of both Uzbek and international human rights law.
His fellow Sunshine Coalition leader, Nadira Khidoyatova, was recently released from prison on the grounds that she had a young family to support. She spent a year in detention facilities and neither her trial nor her arrest were legal under Uzbek or international law. She was nevertheless forced to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in costs, accused of money laundering and tax evasion. Her name has not been cleared of the charges.
Torture of detainees is endemic. Craig Murray, ex- British ambassador to Uzbekistan, has bravely spoken out against this, publishing this year a book entitled ‘Murder in Samarkand’, which details the horrors of Uzbek regime. He was given photos of a man boiled alive by the Uzbek authorities and his decision to make that information public caused the Foreign Office to sack him. Murray has been a lone voice in mainstream UK media since. He claims that the US and UK governments support, condone or at least turn a blind eye the use of such torture methods because Bush and Blair fear that the Ferghana Valley (regional capital Andijan) is a “hotbed” of Islamic fundamentalism. A Sunshine coalition spokesman, Bahodir Namazov, refutes this:
“We believe that rumours of Islamic militancy in the Ferghana Valley are seriously exaggerated. Unrest and
protests in this region are caused by existing social and economic problems in our country”. According to a recent International Crisis Group report, the state of the Uzbek economy and degree of political repression puts it in the same category as Zimbabwe and Burma. Sunshine Coalition has recently been developing an economic strategy to further strengthen its status as a viable political alternative. Nadira Khidoyatova is a respected businesswoman who has declared open membership to her party, “for everyone who cares about Uzbekistan”.
Many are speculating that the US and UK tolerate such a crackdown on dissent not because of a perceived threat from religious leaders but because of the region’s geopolitical significance: if there is a fundamentalist “network” or as Tony Blair put it, an arc of evil, it could span all the way from Afghanistan to Iran. The Ferghana Valley reaches over the Uzbek border into Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, so any protest in that region, religious or otherwise has the potential to cause cross-border unrest. Central Asia possesses vast resources of natural gas and untapped mineral wealth; the UK is in talks to use Uzbekistan as a dumping ground for its nuclear waste, and the US is also desperate to have Karimov’s government on side. Since the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan, US forces kept a permanent airbase on Uzbek soil. When the Bush government attempted to question Karimov about the Andijan massacre, the Uzbek President asked that that base be removed. The Germans were allowed to keep their army base at Termez. When the Uzbek Foreign Minister visited Berlin for health checks this year, German authorities failed to question him on Andijan even though he was traveling on a visa ban.
Since the US spoke out in condemnation of the Andijan massacre, President Karimov has sought to make a new, even more dangerous ally – Russia. Putin has no scruples in doing business with Karimov. Within the US, Bush’s actions have a forum in which to be criticized; either by the liberal left and by human rights groups funded by Congress (e.g. the Helsinki Commission). Putin has no such barriers to forging a close relationship with Karimov. Human rights abuses are therefore likely to continue unchecked for the foreseeable future.
But Karimov actively courted the US when the war on terror began in 2001. Since the US airbase was dismantled in 2005, a wave of anti-America paranoia led to the exit of US funded projects. Some have speculated that US were actively funding political opposition via human rights groups. “All funds we have are private contributions from Uzbek businessmen…[we] have never received and do not receive any financial contributions from abroad, neither from the US nor from other Western countries” says Khidoyatova. She points out that no influential members of Congress participated in a recent Helsinki Commission hearing, and that there were no sanctions implemented against Uzbekistan following the Andijan massacre.
The Karimov government still holds monopoly over all media outlets. There are virtually no independent news organisations operating from inside Uzbekistan and again, Zaur and Ikhtiyor from Bukhara knew nothing of the Andijan massacre when asked. After reporting on the events of Andijan, Monica Whitlock and her BBC team closed their Uzbekistan bureau in 2005 after receiving threats to the person. Since the attempt to silence the Sunshine Coalition, Uzbek expatriates set up a self funding website www.freeuzbekistan.com . It is not affiliated to any political party but was shut down by nervous Russian authorities this August. The webmaster has now chosen to reopen the site using a British web host to prevent the problem from recurring.
Karimov has held power since 1990, and elections have never been free or fair. So without independent media sources, how do opposition parties get their message across to the Uzbek people?
Nigara Khidoyatova, sister of the freed Sunshine leader Nodira Khidoyatova, said “our party [Free Peasants Party, of which she is the leader] remains the only opposition party which actively operates inside Uzbekistan. We are trying to publish all our plans, decisions, statements and appeals on independent web sites such as centrasia.ru and ferghana.ru.” However, when I consulted Zaur and Ihktiyor about their Internet use, no one was ready to admit knowledge of these sites, let alone owning up to consulting them.
The world of international politics is full of shades of grey, dodgy dealings and shifting alliances. But there is one area that the US and the UK are complicit in graying which should always remain a black/white line: torture. Sanjar Umarov has been tortured; peaceful protesters have been tortured and killed. This is not another plea from a liberal leftie to help poor weak third world countryfolk. Uzbekistan is a country which has the talent help itself. It’s a media voice that it needs.
Further resources: www.afreeuzb.com
www.sunshinecoalition.org
www.craigmurray.co.uk
www.csce.gov (Helsinki Commission)
With thanks to Shahida Yakub for Russian-English translation, to Ikhtiyor and Zaur (name changed) and to Bahodir Namazov, Nigara Khidoyatova and especially to Nodira Khidoyatova who answered questions so shortly after being released from prison.
One of the most shocking of the post-Andijan trials is the case of Sanjar Umarov, Chairman of the Sunshine Coalition, an alliance of opposition parties. He returned from the US in 2005, only to be arrested at Tashkent airport, tried in a closed court, and drugged in a concrete cell for two weeks without access to legal representation. After being sentenced to a ten year prison term, Umarov has now been transferred to a penal colony near the southern Uzbek city of Bukhara. His family and his lawyer have been consistently denied access to him. This is a contravention of both Uzbek and international human rights law.
His fellow Sunshine Coalition leader, Nadira Khidoyatova, was recently released from prison on the grounds that she had a young family to support. She spent a year in detention facilities and neither her trial nor her arrest were legal under Uzbek or international law. She was nevertheless forced to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in costs, accused of money laundering and tax evasion. Her name has not been cleared of the charges.
Torture of detainees is endemic. Craig Murray, ex- British ambassador to Uzbekistan, has bravely spoken out against this, publishing this year a book entitled ‘Murder in Samarkand’, which details the horrors of Uzbek regime. He was given photos of a man boiled alive by the Uzbek authorities and his decision to make that information public caused the Foreign Office to sack him. Murray has been a lone voice in mainstream UK media since. He claims that the US and UK governments support, condone or at least turn a blind eye the use of such torture methods because Bush and Blair fear that the Ferghana Valley (regional capital Andijan) is a “hotbed” of Islamic fundamentalism. A Sunshine coalition spokesman, Bahodir Namazov, refutes this:
“We believe that rumours of Islamic militancy in the Ferghana Valley are seriously exaggerated. Unrest and
protests in this region are caused by existing social and economic problems in our country”. According to a recent International Crisis Group report, the state of the Uzbek economy and degree of political repression puts it in the same category as Zimbabwe and Burma. Sunshine Coalition has recently been developing an economic strategy to further strengthen its status as a viable political alternative. Nadira Khidoyatova is a respected businesswoman who has declared open membership to her party, “for everyone who cares about Uzbekistan”.
Many are speculating that the US and UK tolerate such a crackdown on dissent not because of a perceived threat from religious leaders but because of the region’s geopolitical significance: if there is a fundamentalist “network” or as Tony Blair put it, an arc of evil, it could span all the way from Afghanistan to Iran. The Ferghana Valley reaches over the Uzbek border into Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, so any protest in that region, religious or otherwise has the potential to cause cross-border unrest. Central Asia possesses vast resources of natural gas and untapped mineral wealth; the UK is in talks to use Uzbekistan as a dumping ground for its nuclear waste, and the US is also desperate to have Karimov’s government on side. Since the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan, US forces kept a permanent airbase on Uzbek soil. When the Bush government attempted to question Karimov about the Andijan massacre, the Uzbek President asked that that base be removed. The Germans were allowed to keep their army base at Termez. When the Uzbek Foreign Minister visited Berlin for health checks this year, German authorities failed to question him on Andijan even though he was traveling on a visa ban.
Since the US spoke out in condemnation of the Andijan massacre, President Karimov has sought to make a new, even more dangerous ally – Russia. Putin has no scruples in doing business with Karimov. Within the US, Bush’s actions have a forum in which to be criticized; either by the liberal left and by human rights groups funded by Congress (e.g. the Helsinki Commission). Putin has no such barriers to forging a close relationship with Karimov. Human rights abuses are therefore likely to continue unchecked for the foreseeable future.
But Karimov actively courted the US when the war on terror began in 2001. Since the US airbase was dismantled in 2005, a wave of anti-America paranoia led to the exit of US funded projects. Some have speculated that US were actively funding political opposition via human rights groups. “All funds we have are private contributions from Uzbek businessmen…[we] have never received and do not receive any financial contributions from abroad, neither from the US nor from other Western countries” says Khidoyatova. She points out that no influential members of Congress participated in a recent Helsinki Commission hearing, and that there were no sanctions implemented against Uzbekistan following the Andijan massacre.
The Karimov government still holds monopoly over all media outlets. There are virtually no independent news organisations operating from inside Uzbekistan and again, Zaur and Ikhtiyor from Bukhara knew nothing of the Andijan massacre when asked. After reporting on the events of Andijan, Monica Whitlock and her BBC team closed their Uzbekistan bureau in 2005 after receiving threats to the person. Since the attempt to silence the Sunshine Coalition, Uzbek expatriates set up a self funding website www.freeuzbekistan.com . It is not affiliated to any political party but was shut down by nervous Russian authorities this August. The webmaster has now chosen to reopen the site using a British web host to prevent the problem from recurring.
Karimov has held power since 1990, and elections have never been free or fair. So without independent media sources, how do opposition parties get their message across to the Uzbek people?
Nigara Khidoyatova, sister of the freed Sunshine leader Nodira Khidoyatova, said “our party [Free Peasants Party, of which she is the leader] remains the only opposition party which actively operates inside Uzbekistan. We are trying to publish all our plans, decisions, statements and appeals on independent web sites such as centrasia.ru and ferghana.ru.” However, when I consulted Zaur and Ihktiyor about their Internet use, no one was ready to admit knowledge of these sites, let alone owning up to consulting them.
The world of international politics is full of shades of grey, dodgy dealings and shifting alliances. But there is one area that the US and the UK are complicit in graying which should always remain a black/white line: torture. Sanjar Umarov has been tortured; peaceful protesters have been tortured and killed. This is not another plea from a liberal leftie to help poor weak third world countryfolk. Uzbekistan is a country which has the talent help itself. It’s a media voice that it needs.
Further resources: www.afreeuzb.com
www.sunshinecoalition.org
www.craigmurray.co.uk
www.csce.gov (Helsinki Commission)
With thanks to Shahida Yakub for Russian-English translation, to Ikhtiyor and Zaur (name changed) and to Bahodir Namazov, Nigara Khidoyatova and especially to Nodira Khidoyatova who answered questions so shortly after being released from prison.
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e-mail:
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