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II.      Treatment of Uzbek Nationals Returned to Uzbekistan

2.         Pressure from the Uzbek government and possible collusion between Uzbek security forces and the security services of several Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) countries has led to the extradition, deportation, or rendition without legal process of dozens of Uzbek refugees either alleged to be associated with the May 2005 Andijan protests and subsequent massacre by Uzbek security forces or perceived to be “independent Muslims”—that is, people who practice Islam outside state institutions and guidelines.¹  Most of those returned are held for some period in incommunicado detention and there has been little, if any, independent access to the returnees.²  The few interviews that have been conducted with returnees, their family members, or lawyers indicate that some of the returnees were tortured or ill-treated upon return to Uzbekistan. Torture and ill-treatment in Uzbekistan are systematic and in the vast majority of cases there is no accountability for torture abuses committed by state actors.³ 

Ill-Treatment of Returnees from Kazakhstan

3.         In November 2005 at least nine Uzbek nationals seeking refuge from religious persecution were forcibly returned from Kazakhstan to Uzbekistan without any legal process.⁴ All of the men were independent Muslims. Four of the men were formally registered as asylum seekers with the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Human Rights Watch’s research indicates that some of the men were ill-treated in Uzbek custody on return:

The wife of one returnee told Human Rights Watch that when she first saw her husband, two months after his return to Uzbekistan from Kazakhstan, he told her that he was severely beaten by the security services of both Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.⁵  He told her they took his clothes because they were full of blood. According to his wife, he was very scared, could hardly speak, and had lost a great deal of weight. The returnee’s lawyer told the wife that when the lawyer saw the returnee, he had an injury to his head but the lawyer believed he was coerced to say that he had fallen to explain the bandage on his head.

The wife of another returnee told Human Rights Watch that at the end of February 2006, the wives of some of the returnees from Kazakhstan were summoned to the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD) and told to “shut up and stay at home.”⁶ When she saw her husband in March 2006 in a Tashkent prison, she said that he made her understand through subtle arm gestures that he had been severely beaten. He told his wife that 20 men lived in his cell, there were no mattresses, and the inmates slept in shifts on the ground.  When he was transferred to the Tashkent prison in January 2006, other inmates demanded that he give them his gold teeth. They beat him until he agreed and they extracted all his teeth with “some tool.” He received no medical care until four days after this attack when he was taken to the MVD for medical evaluation.  His wife told Human Rights Watch, “It was difficult for me to listen to this and I did not want him to tell me this, but he could not stop and we cried together.”

The lawyer for another returnee told Human Rights Watch that she first saw her client at the MVD with an investigator and police agent present, in January 2006, two months after his return from Kazakhstan:⁷ “I asked him, somehow with gestures, if they beat him at the MVD and he nodded his head.” The lawyer said that the man should have been in a pre-trial detention center under judicial supervision, but he was being kept in the basement at the MVD. She saw him again in March 2006 and asked him why he was wearing a dirty old jacket, to which he replied, “when they kick then one wallows on the floor, in such a jacket, one wallows.”

Incommunicado Detention of Uzbek Refugees Extradited from Kyrgyzstan

4.         Between June 2005 and August 2006, the government of Kyrgyzstan returned two groups of Uzbek refugees allegedly linked to the May 2005 events in Andijan. In June 2005, four Uzbek nationals registered as asylum seekers with UNHCR in Kyrgyzstan were returned to Uzbekistan. No independent person or group had access to the men before their extraditions to Uzbekistan. The Kyrgyz Ministry of Internal Affairs subsequently produced identical statements signed by the four men giving their consent to be returned to Uzbekistan. UNHCR and the ICRC have been denied access to the men in Uzbekistan.

5.         When all efforts to track the men’s whereabouts and treatment in Uzbekistan failed, Human Rights Watch in July 2005 referred the men’s cases to the UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances (WG). In its response to the WG, the Uzbek government said that the men were in a detention facility in Tashkent, charged with committing crimes during the Andijan events of May 13, 2005, and had voluntarily returned to Uzbekistan, making it unnecessary for the Kyrgyz authorities to consider Uzbekistan’s extradition request in full. ⁸ The fact that the men were registered asylum seekers and claimed fear of persecution if returned to Uzbekistan seriously undermines the Uzbek authorities’ claim that the men voluntarily returned and confessed.  According to Amnesty International, one of the returnees was tortured in prison post-return.⁹

6.         In August 2006 the Kyrgyz government extradited four Uzbek refugees and one asylum seeker to Uzbekistan.¹⁰  The United Nations, United States, and European Union had all urged the Kyrgyz authorities not to extradite the men. In the conclusions issued following the annual meeting between the EU and the Kyrgyz government in July 2006, the EU expressed “its strong concern over the fate of the …four [refugees], urging the Kyrgyz side to respect its international obligations and release them to UNHCR for resettlement.”¹¹  In December 2006 the German government, in its capacity as incoming president of the EU, wrote a letter to the Uzbek government requesting permission to visit the men in prison. The Uzbek authorities refused the request, saying they would consider the question of a visit again at the beginning of 2007. To date, neither the EU nor any other independent actor or organization has been granted access to the men.¹²

Illegal Returns from Ukraine

7.         The government of Ukraine extradited 10 Uzbek asylum seekers to Uzbekistan in February 2006.¹³  The Uzbek authorities alleged that the men were involved in the May 2005 events in Andijan. In the immediate aftermath of the extraditions, UNHCR issued a statement deploring the forced return of the group.¹⁴ 

8.         A group of Ukrainian nongovernmental organizations wrote to the Ukrainian Ministry of Justice in late February 2006 condemning the extraditions. In a May 3, 2006 response letter, the ministry acknowledged that torture in Uzbekistan is systematic; the men had a right to appeal against their extraditions, but were not given the opportunity; and that UNHCR and human rights groups did not have access to the men before they were extradited.¹⁵  The ministry concluded that: “The extradition request from the Prosecutor’s Office of Uzbekistan on the basis of the charges for terrorist activities cannot be a sufficient ground for the forced expulsion of a refugee without a proper consideration of the asylum application about persecution [for] political reasons.”¹⁶  Despite what appears to be the ministry’s acknowledgement of Ukraine’s responsibility for violating the human rights of the 10 Uzbek returnees, at least 14 more Uzbek nationals allegedly involved in the Andijan events were returned from Ukraine in April 2006 alone.¹⁷

9.         While little is known about the treatment of the returnees from Ukraine (see section below on lack of access to returnees), two Uzbek lawyers engaged in defending the men were arrested and charged with fraud in the run-up to the men’s trials. One lawyer was convicted, lost his license to practice law for six months, and was sentenced to corrective labor.¹⁸