| | |
|
| |
|
|
Uzbekistan “Saving its Secrets” Government Repression in Andijan
HRW Index No.: 1-56432-318-8 May 12, 2008 Also available in 
Download PDF, 236 KB, 49 pgs Purchase online Download E-Book Nowhere to Turn Torture and Ill-treatment in Uzbekistan
HRW Index No.: D1906 November 6, 2007 Also available in
Download PDF, 376 KB, 92 pgs Purchase online Download E-Book Burying the Truth Uzbekistan Rewrites the Story of the Andijan Massacre This report provides numerous first-hand testimonies of a brutal police campaign forcing people to “confess” that they belong to extremist religious organizations, that the protests in Andijan were violent, and that the protesters were armed. HRW Index No.: D1706 September 19, 2005 Download PDF, 450 KB, 75 pgs Purchase online “Bullets Were Falling Like Rain” The Andijan Massacre, May 13, 2005 This report is based on 50 interviews with victims of and witnesses to the May 13 killings. It details the Uzbek government’s indiscriminate use of lethal force against unarmed people, describes government efforts to silence witnesses, and places the events against the background of Uzbekistan’s worsening human rights record. HRW Index No.: D1705 June 7, 2005 Download PDF, 603 KB, 65 pgs Purchase online Empty Promises Diplomatic Assurances No Safeguard Against Torture Individuals suspected of terrorism should never be returned to a country where they risk torture and ill-treatment. Promises of fair treatment by states with well-known records of torture are inherently unreliable, and governments that justify returns through such promises, known as “diplomatic assurances,” are violating the absolute prohibition against torture and eroding a fundamental principle of international law. The death penalty, however reprehensible, is legal and usually carried out publicly. But torture is illegal and practiced in secret. Governments routinely lie about whether they’re torturing people or not, and in some situations they may not even have adequate control to guarantee security. This 39-page report documents cases where governments returned or considered returning suspects on the basis of such formal guarantees, and raises concern that in some cases, those returned were, in fact, tortured or ill-treated. HRW Index No.: D1604 April 15, 2004 Download PDF, 360 KB, 39 pgs Purchase online Creating Enemies of the State Religious Persecution in Uzbekistan This 319-page report details the arrest and torture of detainees in an ongoing campaign that has resulted in the incarceration of an estimated 7,000 Muslim dissidents. The government's targets are independent Muslims who practice their faith outside state-run mosques and madrassas or beyond the strict controls set out by the government's laws on religion. HRW Index No.: 1564322998 March 30, 2004 Also available in 
Download PDF, 4700 KB, 319 pgs Purchase online From House to House Abuses by Mahalla Comittees Uzbekistan’s neighborhood committees violate fundamental human rights, carrying the government's repressive policies to the local level. This 38-page report documents the role neighborhood, or mahalla, committees have played in three critical areas of government abuse: the government's six-year campaign against so-called Islamic fundamentalists, its response to domestic violence, and the 2000-2001 forced resettlement in southern Uzbekistan. For centuries, the mahalla was an autonomous institution organized around Islamic rituals and social events, but the current government transformed it into a national system for surveillance and control. Uzbekistan is divided up into approximately 12,000 mahallas, each containing between 150 and 1,500 households. The mahalla committees are local government authorities with the power to administer a range of activities. Human Rights Watch called on the government to ensure that mahalla committees stop discrimination and surveillance of independent Muslims; provide in-depth training of mahalla officials on the provision of protection to complainants in domestic violence cases; and facilitate, rather than block, access for international organizations and the media to resettlement villages. Human Rights Watch further called on international donors to require reform of mahalla committees as a condition for funding projects involving the committees. HRW Index No.: D1507 September 23, 2003 Download PDF Purchase online Sacrificing Women to Save the Family?: Domestic Violence in Uzbekistan Uzbekistan's post-Soviet development, like that in most of the former Soviet Union, has entailed enormous and disproportionate obstacles to women's realization of their human rights. During the past ten years, Uzbekistan's government has attempted to institute some safeguards for women's rights, mainly in the area of social welfare support. Nevertheless, domestic violence remains a serious problem, against which the government has failed to take effective measures. On the contrary, state policies intended to keep families together and foster community assistance to those families experiencing conflict have compounded the situation of women facing abuse in the home, and often prevent them from obtaining either relief or redress. Contrary to the government's assertions that women in Uzbekistan enjoy broad and effective human rights protections, Human Rights Watch found that women victims of domestic violence suffer doubly, both at the hands of husbands who physically and otherwise abuse them, and at the hands of the state. Local officials routinely refuse to take violence against women seriously, blaming the victims and blocking women's attempts to escape brutality and violence in their marriages. Those who commit physical abuse rarely face criminal prosecution. Instead, local authorities, under orders from central government officials, attempt to reconcile married couples, often sacrificing the women's safety for low divorce statistics. The main aim of these government-directed interventions is to "save the family." State officials accomplish this goal through coercing women victims to remain in abusive situations, ignoring violence against women, and perpetuating impunity for violent husbands. HRW Index No.: D1304 July 1, 2001 Download PDF Purchase online Uzbekistan: Child Soldiers Global Report 2001 From the Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers It is not known if there are under-18s in government armed forces due to lack of information on voluntary recruitment age. Recruitment of boys under 18 by armed opposition groups has been reported. June 12, 2001 Uzbekistan -- "And it Was Hell All over Again...": Torture in Uzbekistan Widespread torture of detainees is common in criminal investigations in Uzbekistan, and has become an unmistakable feature of the government's crackdown against independent Islam. Uzbekistan's government refuses to hold police and security forces accountable for acts of torture, and even tacitly encourages torture though its broadcasting of political prisoners' public "confessions" as tools of political propaganda. Instituting legal and judicial reform to halt torture, and ending impunity for it, should be a matter of priority for the government of Uzbekistan and for all parties interested in human rights and the security and stability of the region. HRW Index No.: 253X December 1, 2000 Purchase online Uzbekistan: Landmine Monitor Report 2000 Key development since March 1999: Uzbekistan is reported to have reinforced its border with Kyrgyzstan with landmines. Uzbekistan has not acceded to the Mine Ban Treaty. According to a Russian Foreign Ministry official in May 2000, at high political levels the Uzbekistan government shares the goals and aims of the Mine Ban Treaty, but cannot immediately join because of financial constraints.25 Uzbekistan is not known to have made any statements on landmines, or attended any diplomatic meetings on landmines, in 1999 or 2000. August 1, 2000 Leaving No Witnesses: Uzbekistan's Campaign against Rights Defenders Local human rights defenders play a crucial role in promoting the rule of law. They are a lifeline of information, tying victims of government abuse to the rest of society, and providing the first recourse for victims in their search for redress and justice. Since their emergence in 1992, human rights defenders in Uzbekistan have worked under the pressure of rigorous government surveillance and harassment. HRW Index No.: D1204 March 1, 2000 Purchase online Uzbekistan--Class Dismissed: Discriminatory Expulsions of Muslim Students Schools and universities throughout Uzbekistan are closing their doors to Muslim men with beards and women in headscarves. n a new report about Uzbekistan, Human Rights Watch documents a pernicious form of religious discrimination practiced by the government against Muslims. Judges presided over blatantly unfair trials, ignoring police misdeeds and convicting men on the basis of their religious beliefs. HRW Index No.: D1112 October 1, 1999 Purchase online Crackdown in the Farghona Valley: Arbitrary Arrests and Discrimination Since gaining independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, the Republic of Uzbekistan has made little progress in moving away from Soviet-style repression of human rights. In recent years it has acknowledged some human rights problems, such as poorly trained police officers, but as a rule the government dismisses the abuses as necessary to stabilize the country during its transition toward its stated goals of democracy and a free-market economy. But a government policy of intolerance toward what it perceives as the primary threat to state stability - Muslims whom the government generally refers to as "Wahhabis" - makes a travesty of the government's assertion that the stability born of repression is necessary to achieve democracy. The human rights abuses committed during a crackdown in the Farghona Valley, an Islamic stronghold, that began intensively in early December 1997 are a natural outgrowth of the government's unchecked repression of what can loosely be referred to as "independent" Muslims or those who chafe at state-regulated Islam. It also represents the most dramatic and worrisome escalation of human rights abuses seen in recent years in this already highly repressive country. HRW Index No.: D1004 May 1, 1998 Purchase online Violations of Media Freedom: Journalism and Censorship in Uzbekistan Despite the government of Uzbekistan's professed commitment to freedom of the press—made both explicitly and publicly over the past two years—state censorship of the media remains pervasive and intimidation of journalists is rampant. The tone and subject matter of articles published in Uzbekistan is strictly controlled by the government. Moreover, many journalists do not dare to challenge the parameters of the state's media policy, fearful of the possible professional repercussions should they guess incorrectly about the limits of the state's tolerance for critical expression. The Uzbek government's public calls for greater press freedom lie in stark contrast to its complete failure to give force to laws that guarantee freedom of expression, as well as to the impunity granted to those who beat and harass journalists. Today there exists a tension between official government policy toward free speech, which allows the principle of free media, and the stark reality for journalists and media consumers who cannot enjoy the practice of free media because of government harassment. The independent media will continue to suffer until the Uzbek government of President Islam Karimov musters the political will to observe laws protecting free speech. HRW Index No.: D907 May 1, 1996 Persistent Human Rights Violations and Prospects for Improvement In late 1994, the authoritarian government of Uzbekistan, long stigmatized as a serious human rights abuser, showed the first signs that it desired to change its image. In September of that year, it hosted an international seminar in Toshkent sponsored by the OSCE, at which, in a move unprecedented since early 1992, two local human rights activists were allowed to address the forum, even at the height of a campaign to silence them and all dissidents. At the same time, fundamental human rights are systematically denied to residents of Uzbekistan. HRW Index No.: D805 May 1, 1996 Threats to Press Freedom A Report Prepared for the Free Media Seminar Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe The Free Media Seminar of the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe is taking place at a critical time. First, because developments throughout the region suggest that protection for media freedoms fall well short of international standards. Second, because there are disturbing signs of erosion for universal free expression protections on the part of international and continental bodies that should be insisting on bedrock protections for freedom of the press. Helsinki Watch, which since 1978 has monitored the state of human rights in many of the nations that signed the Helsinki Final Act, has in recent months published reports or conducted investigations in the countries listed above. We summarize our findings in the sections that follow. We do not claim that this is a comprehensive or exhaustive listing of curbs on media freedom in CSCE countries, or even in the countries we have included in this report. November 1, 1993 Download PDF, 275 KB, 39 pgs Printer friendly version Human Rights in Uzbekistan The violations of human rights taking place in today's Uzbekistan are uncannily familiar. Perhaps most striking is the gulf between the government's stated and legal commitment to human rights protection, and its actual record. On the one hand, protection of human rights is enshrined in both international instruments to which the republic is signatory and legislative acts, such as the new constitution, that were written and passed by its own legislature; on the other hand, those same rights are being violated either personally by government officials or without their direct intervention. HRW Index No.: 1-56432-099-5 May 1, 1993 "straightening Out the Brains of 100" Discriminatory Political Dismissals in Uzbekistan Dismissals from the workplace as a means of punishing and discouraging critical speech, particularly levelled at members of the political opposition, are occurring all too frequently in Uzbekistan. The administration's attitude toward the opposition has been articulated thus: “It is necessary to straighten out the brains of 100 people in order to preserve the lives of thousands.” HRW Index No.: D507 April 1, 1993
|
The Andijan Massacre: Video, Audio and Photo Essay  Umida Niazova, July, 2006. © 2007 Private.  Photograph of Uzbek rights defender Saidjahon Zainabitdinov in Andijan, Uzbekistan April 2005. © 2005 Private  Human Rights Defenders in Uzbekistan.  
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Contribute to Human Rights Watch
Home | About Us | News Releases | Publications | Info by Country | Global Issues | Campaigns | Community | Store | Film Festival | Search | Site Map | Contact Us | Press Contacts | Privacy Policy © Copyright 2006, Human Rights Watch 350 Fifth Avenue, 34th Floor New York, NY 10118-3299 USA |
