Background
On May 13, 2005 Uzbek government forces killed hundreds of unarmed protesters as they fled a demonstration in Andijan, in eastern Uzbekistan. To date the government has taken no steps to investigate or hold accountable those responsible for this atrocity. Instead it is denying all responsibility and persecuting those who seek an independent and transparent investigation.
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The attackers who took over the government buildings, released prisoners, killed officials, and took hostages committed serious crimes. Any government has a legitimate interest in investigating and prosecuting such crimes and an obligation to do so while upholding the rule of law. But the Uzbek government is using widespread repression and abuse to manipulate the truth, so that it can depict the protest itself as violent—organized by “terrorists” with a radical Islamic agenda and with the participation of mostly armed protestors—and suppress any evidence to the contrary, and shift the blame for the deaths of so many unarmed people.
The authorities launched a wide-scale crackdown to suppress any information that contradicts their version of the May 13 protest and the killings. In Andijan, police detained, severely beat, and threatened people to coerce them to sign false confessions of belonging to extremist religious organizations and bearing arms while participating in the May 13 protest; to name others at the protest; to incriminate others in violence; or to say that they witnessed violence at the demonstration. Uzbek authorities hounded many of the families of the hundreds of people who had fled the protest and had become refugees in neighboring Kyrgyzstan to compel them to come home, where they too could be interrogated and prevented from telling their story to the outside world.
The government also unleashed a crackdown on civil society, the ferocity of which is unprecedented even in Uzbekistan’s fourteen-year history of repression since it became independent from the Soviet Union. The authorities have aggressively pursued human rights defenders, independent journalists and political activists who attempted to convey the truth about the events of May 13 and the days that followed. These individuals have been arrested on spurious charges, detained, beaten, threatened, put under surveillance or under de facto house arrest, and have been set upon by mobs and humiliated through Soviet-style public denunciations. At least eleven activists had been imprisoned, and at least fifteen had been forced to flee the country into exile.
The Trial
The first trial related to the Andijan events began on September 20, before a three-judge panel in the Supreme Court of Uzbekistan. In the courtroom, fifteen defendants, all men, sit in a cage, their hands on their knees and their heads bowed. They never look up. The cage is guarded by armed officers, who carry out an official changing of the guard on an hourly basis. In the middle of the courtroom is the defense table; although fifteen defense attorneys sit at the table, the effect of their presence in the courtroom is negligible. They ask few questions. At best, the questions they ask are irrelevant to the proceedings. At worst, they further incriminate their own clients. A row of prosecutors, in uniform, lines the wall facing the defendants.
The courtroom’s gallery is filled with witnesses and plainclothes officers of the National Security Service (SNB). Journalists from state television film the proceedings as well as the audience. A few independent observers, including representatives of Human Rights Watch, also sit in the main courtroom. Only one Uzbek NGO has been granted access to observe the trial; all other requests were refused or went unanswered. Relatives of the defendants have no access to the court. Just outside the courtroom are two rooms equipped with closed circuit television on which journalists and diplomats watch the trial.
All fifteen defendants confessed to all charges in long speeches. Since then, a long parade of witnesses and victims has provided testimony that generally corroborates the government version of the events of May 13. But it does little to paint a clear, detailed picture of the day and almost nothing to establish the individual criminal liability of any of the fifteen men on trial who face charges that can carry the death penalty.
Mahbubahon Zokirova’s Testimony
On October 14, a woman from a village near Andijan stunned the court with a very different version of events. Mahbubahon Zokirova, a wife and mother of four who herself completed only eight grades of school, bravely told what she witnessed on May 13. Her testimony painted a harrowing picture of government aggression in Andijan never mentioned in the rest of the trial. She pointedly questioned the credibility of witnesses who denied that soldiers shot civilians, and vividly detailed the gruesome scene of soldiers firing on fleeing demonstrators. She recounted that “blood ran down the street” as soldiers attacked demonstrators from vehicles, windows of the surrounding buildings and trees. Soldiers shot at the backs of retreating women and children, and continued shooting as they waved their headscarves in surrender.
May 12 was Zokirova’s birthday and she came in from her village to Andijan with her children the day after. She saw people in the square and went to the crowd; people in the crowd said that President Karimov was coming. Then Zokirova saw a helicopter flying overhead. As it flew low, the people around her looked up and said, “[president] Karimov is really coming to see us.” Then two armored cars came. According to Zokirova’s testimony, the armed people at the demonstration told the crowd not to run away but to stay together in a group because the soldiers cannot shoot people in a group. They said to put the hostages in the front, because the soldiers will not shoot through their own people.
Zokirova told the court that she became separated from her three-year-old son but was afraid to run to him because of the shooting. She stood in an open street screaming and crying as bullets whizzed by. She could not reach him, but a young man ran into the street and covered the boy with his own body, saving his life. The man was shot in the head. "Because of this young man," she said, "I will tell the truth. I will tell the truth. Why would I lie? How can I lie? I am indebted to this man who died for my child. He probably had children too."
Zokirova gave a detailed account of the killing on May 13, describing who was shooting and from where. She knew soldiers were shooting because she saw their helmets and their uniforms. She said that they gave no warning, and just began firing.
As Zokirova fled with a group from the square, people opened the doors to their homes and told those fleeing to come in so they would not get shot. Zokirova did not enter a house, and later saw soldiers going to houses after the fleeing demonstrators. In her testimony, Zokirova recounted how she left Andijan, walking with a group of people to the Kyrgyz border.
"When we reached Teshik-Tosh none of us was armed. There were women, old women, pregnant women, children. The women took off their scarves and men used them as white flags and went in front saying, “Let women pass. If they have to kill let them kill us.” But when we started walking they didn’t look at white flags. These people shot [us]. I swear on my four children that they did."
Zokirova spent one night in Kyrgyzstan, and went the next day to a Kyrgyz hospital. Her husband arrived the next day with a representative of her mahallah [neighborhood] committee and the mayor of her village and forced her to return home. “I am afraid to live in this country,” she told the court.
The judges and prosecutors appeared unprepared for Zokirova’s testimony. They attacked her credibility but asked her little about the substance of her testimony. One of the judges began his questioning by asking Zokirova about her motives for being at the square that day, and why she stayed for so long in the crowded square surrounded by burning buildings and armed men. Prosecutors attacked Zokirova’s judgment, and said that she would not have been able to tell who was firing on the crowd: “Because you are a woman,” one prosecutor said, “because you are taking care of your children, you do not understand who shot from where.” A prosecutor also stated that Zokirova’s account branded her an “Akramist” [a reference to the teachings of Akram Yuldashev, a local man and author of a 1992 religious pamphlet; the businessmen whose arrests sparked the protests and subsequent killings in Andijan were accused of being followers of “Akramia”]: “From your testimony, it is clear that your relatives are Akramists. They [Akramists] attacked police, freed a prison. They seized 334 weapons. You couldn’t understand who was doing the shooting. If all of these people were shooting from these weapons, it would be a shoot-out. Imagine this many weapons. How could you, as a woman, tell who was shooting?”
Zokirova told the court, “I’m not afraid of you. When I remember the events, then I’m afraid.” She also resisted the implication that she was not telling the truth. “I have one chance in my life to say the truth even if it is just this one time. I watch the television [reports of the trial] and wonder why do all of these people lie [about what happened].”
The Aftermath of Mahbubahon Zokirova’s Testimony
Although government-controlled media have provided extensive coverage of the trial, with lengthy daily reports on television including long extracts from witness testimony and articles in the newspapers, no state media covered the substance of Zokirova’s testimony. Instead, the media undertook an elaborate spin campaign to present Zokirova not as a witness with a different perspective of the Andijan events but as a liar and as a sympathizer with the “Akramists” and armed men.
For example, on the afternoon of October 14, the day of Zokirova’s testimony, Uzbek television’s only mention of Zokirova’s testimony highlighted the fact that two of her sisters-in-law are among the refugees who fled Uzbekistan to Kyrgyzstan and were airlifted to Romania. The correspondent said: “Do you now understand why Mahbuba Zokirova committed perjury and said she had seen no armed militants near the hokimiat? I think there is no comment.” A few days later, on October 18, the state newspaper Halq So’zi published a long article entitled “Mahbuba did not play her ‘role’ well.” Presenting Zokirova as an uneducated, unemployed, rural woman, the newspaper published brief excerpts of her testimony with no context and implied that she lied. Several other articles imply that Zokirova was brainwashed by the “Akramists” or intimately involved in the events of May 13.
The state-controlled media coverage of Mahbubahon Zokirova’s testimony fits closely the pattern of the Uzbek government’s attempts to rewrite the history of the Andijan events to deny accountability, and to take harsh measures against those who attempt to speak out about the government’s role in the massacre or challenge the government’s version. More immediately, the media coverage highlights the danger that the government could yet charge Zokirova with complicity in the events. To any others who would speak out about the Andijan massacre or challenge the government’s version, the media coverage also sends a clear signal of the risks involved.
Close of Evidence
After Zokirova’s testimony, the trial resumed its former tenor of predictability. No other witnesses contradicted the government’s version of the Andijan events. At the close of evidence, the case rested entirely on testimony from the defendants, witnesses and victims as well as confidential information from the investigation. The prosecution introduced no forensic, ballistic or medical reports, no exhibits, and presented no expert witnesses. Only Mahbubahon Zokirova challenged the story the government presented.
Last Words before Sentencing
After a two-day break the prosecutors made their closing arguments on October 26, for about five hours. Once more they presented how the events on May 12-13 had unfolded, accusing firstly Qobil Parpiev and Akram Yuldashev of having organized them. Again they focused on the involvement of international media: “Media representatives appeared after the hokimiat was seized. Galima Bukharbaeva, IWPR; AP reporter Marcus Bensmann; Ferghan.Ru reporter, Deutsche Welle and BBC met the leaders and interviewed them. They did not pay attention to the hostages sitting on the floor, facing the wall, hands tied. They met Sharif Shokirov and Qobil Parpiev and spread lies.” Finally, the prosecutors asked that the defendants be sentenced to between fifteen and twenty years imprisonment, and that one of them, Farhod Khamidov, be sent to a high security prison.
Next, the fifteen defense lawyers made their closing remarks. None argued that his or her client was innocent, none contested the evidence presented during the trial, and instead all highlighted that their clients had confessed immediately and had asked for forgiveness from the president of Uzbekistan. Six of the defense lawyers even began their remarks by offering condolences to the citizens of Andijan and begging for forgiveness that they were defending such guilty persons. One said that he would not read his whole statement since this would be repeating what the prosecutor had said. At most, some defense lawyers highlighted how particular charges such as murder went beyond their client’s guilt, or suggested mitigating circumstances
Following the defense lawyers’ remarks, the defendants themselves were given two opportunities to speak. The first was to answer the judges’ question: “was this trial fair?” All fifteen emphatically confirmed that it was, and said that they agreed with what the prosecutors had said. All mentioned that they were guilty (even though this was not an answer to the question), and mentioned that they were treated well in custody (again, not an answer to the question). One defendant, Ilkhom Hodjaev, told the court that the twenty-year prison sentence requested by the prosecutor was too lenient.
In the afternoon all fifteen defendants had the opportunity for a so-called “final word.” All of them made statements that they are guilty and asking for forgiveness. The statements all centered around the same issues: the involvement of foreign media, the propensity to violence of Akramia, the magnanimity of the Uzbek people and the president, and the fairness of the trial.
Many defendants said that they had expected the death penalty, and that they now understood the liberality and fairness of the Uzbek people, the president and Uzbek law. Repeatedly the defendants asked for mitigation of sentence, a chance to show that they are good citizens of Uzbekistan, and to be allowed to be parents to their children. They talked of having brought shame to their own parents. At least five of them broke down in tears.
The final statements of the defendants mirrored the prosecutors’ final arguments and the defense lawyers’ final remarks. One defendant, Muydin Sobirov, reading from a prepared text, said that foreign journalists had given them financial help, and had asked them to speak negatively about the government and to talk about problems that in reality do not exist. Defendant Avazbek Yusupov also asked to be allowed to read his statement since he was so nervous. The paper shook in his hand, and he appeared uncomfortable with the statement’s very literary style, struggling to pronounce some of the words.
Nearly all defendants denounced Akramia, some saying that the last five months in prison had opened their eyes: “I now understand what Akramia is all about and how dangerous it is,” was an oft-repeated comment. Three of them argued that they had wanted to leave the organization but had been afraid to do so because they feared problems for their families. Nearly all made an appeal to the youth of Uzbekistan not to become members of Akramia, or to renounce membership.
The last three defendants to speak appealed to “Akramists” outside Uzbekistan as well as to the citizens of Andijan who had fled the country to return. One of them, Tavakkalbek Khodjiyev said, “Please come back. Our president gives a square deal. Look at me. I am healthy. They could have shot me dead.”
While the defendants made their statements some of the defense lawyers talked amongst themselves and were even laughing.
Sentencing
On November 14, the Uzbek Supreme Court handed down a guilty verdict to all of the 15 defendants. The men received prison sentences ranging from 14 to 20 years. The appeal period is ten days.
On the last day of the trial, the judge read the court’s decision for about six hours, repeating large segments of the indictment. Among other arguments, he stressed once more that foreign media and Akramia joined together to create a revolution in Uzbekistan. The judge stated that he did not take into account the testimony of Mahbubahon Zokirova because it was not consistent with the testimony of other witnesses or with the video tapes. Furthermore, according to the judge, she was not considered a reliable witness because she gave incorrect information about the number of her relatives who fled Uzbekistan after the massacre and are now in Romania.
Officially, at least 100 people were detained and charged in relation to the Andijan events. Their trials are expected to begin in the near future.
