Human Rights Watch is concerned that Ruzimuradov may have died as a result of ill-treatment. He had been held incommunicado in an undisclosed location for twenty-one days after his arrest. Uzbek law enforcement officials repeatedly blocked his family's attempts to locate him in custody; the HRSU reported that he died in the basement of the Ministry of Internal Affairs building.

Adding to suspicion surrounding the activist's death, police blocked all entry within one kilometer of the Ruzimuradov home in the southwestern province of Kashkadaria, and turned away fellow rights defenders who traveled from Tashkent to view the body and take part in funeral services. Activists reported that police threatened to arrest them and "tear [them] to pieces" if they investigated the case further. The activists were interrogated and expelled from the area.

"Ruzimuradov shouldn't have been in custody in the first place," said Elizabeth Andersen, executive director of the Europe and Central Asia division of Human Rights Watch. "The Uzbek government has to answer for this tragedy."

Andersen urged the international community in Tashkent to demand a prompt, thorough, and impartial investigation of Ruzimuradov's death.

Torture in police custody is widespread in Uzbekistan. In a December 2000 report, Human Rights Watch documented fifteen deaths in custody due to torture during the past three years. Last week, Human Rights Watch protested Ruzimuradov's detention in a letter to Uzbek president Islam Karimov, calling on him to reveal the rights defender's whereabouts and to allow Ruzimuradov access to a lawyer.

Police arrested Shovrik Ruzimuradov, a former people's deputy in Uzbekistan's parliament, on June 15, 2001 in Kashkadaria. Officers allegedly planted narcotics, several bullets, and literature of the unregistered Islamic organization Hizb ut-Tahrir to justify the activist's arrest, and physically abused Ruzimuradov's female relatives when they requested that witnesses be called to observe the police operation. The officers confiscated Ruzimuradov's computer equipment, computer disks, and notebook, and reportedly cut the family's phone lines.

In recent months, Ruzimuradov had spoken out publicly on the arrest of some seventy men from Surkhandaria province who were convicted last month of collaborating with armed insurgents in summer 2000. He also advocated on behalf of the hundreds of people forcibly displaced from their villages in Surkhandaria as part of the armed forces' "mop up" operation there.

Ruzimuradov was the father of seven children.