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Human Rights Watch condemned today the beating and detention of Mikhail Ardzinov, one of Uzbekistan's leading human rights defenders.

According to Ardzinov, 63, whom Human Rights Watch interviewed soon after his release from custody, the police held him for nearly fourteen hours. They reportedly beat and kicked him throughout. A U.S. Embassy medical officer who examined him after his release confirmed that he had suffered two broken ribs, a cut nose, contusions to his kidneys, and a concussion. During the interrogation, in which Ardzinov was refused access to medical care and to legal counsel, police brought Ardzinov before a panel of three psychiatrists, threatening him with psychiatric detention. The district prosecutor ordered Ardzinov to appear for further questioning the following day. However, under advice from the U.S. Embassy doctor Ardzinov has remained at home to recuperate from his injuries. Human Rights Watch believes that Mikhail Ardzinov is in danger of further mistreatment by the police if he is again brought in for questioning.

"This outrage is a warning to all of Uzbekistan's human rights defenders" said Holly Cartner, Executive Director of Human Rights Watch's Europe and Central Asia Division. "President Karimov wants no witnesses to the mass arbitrary arrests and political trials underway in the country."

Mr. Ardzinov told Human Rights Watch that at approximately 9:30 am on June 25, three plainclothes officers seized him on the street and brought him by car to his apartment, beating him in the chest, ribs, and kidneys on the way. Another six plainclothes officers and two witnesses were waiting at his home. With them was a uniformed investigator from the Tashkent City Police Department (GUVD), Liudmila Vladimirovna Sich. Officers reportedly continued to beat Ardzinov in the sides and lower back as they took him out of the car. He screamed to neighbors for help and at least one neighbor reportedly witnessed the beating.

Under the supervision of Investigator Sich, the officers confiscated all of Ardzinov's human rights documents, including the archives of his organization, his telephone/address book, which likely contained the names of informants and victims whose identities were meant to remain confidential, his passport, his pension card, engineering diploma, and his organizational identification, along with his computer, xerox machine, fax machine, typewriter, all of his blank paper, and his only good suit. They provided no record of what was taken. During the search, the officers reportedly left the apartment in complete disarray. As Ardzinov protested, one officer allegedly punched him in the nose. Then three officers pounced on him, beating him to the floor. According to Mr Ardzinov, they continued to kick and beat him as he lay on the floor of his living room and as they transported him to Tashkent police headquarters.

There, Investigator Hatam Yuldashevich Yakubov reportedly subjected Ardzinov to nine continuous hours of interrogation during which more physical violence was threatened. Yakubov refused Ardzinov's repeated requests for medical assistance and denied him access to his lawyer. The investigator informed Ardzinov that he was charged with hooliganism. Yakubov presented him with written testimony from two witnesses describing offensive letters which Ardzinov allegedly wrote them and distributed to other people. One complainant, Vasilia Inoiatova, a human rights activist from a rival group, confronted Ardzinov in person. Investigator Yakubov questioned another person affiliated with Ardzinov's own organization, Rafshan Hamidov, to give testimony against Ardzinov. Hamidov, who has been in police custody since his arrest on May 14, stated that Ardzinov was involved in anti-state activities and was against the government.

Investigator Yakubov did not, however, question Ardzinov about the letters he allegedly wrote, but rather about his human rights organization, his alleged support of Islamists, and his alleged links to exiled opposition leader Mohammed Solih. The government has charged Solih, in exile since 1993, with masterminding the bombings that took place in Tashkent on February 16.

In the course of the interrogation, Investigator Yakubov sent Ardzinov to Tashkent's main psychiatric clinic. Ardzinov, whom Soviet officials subjected to two months of groundless psychiatric detention in 1985, refused to speak with doctors. Afterwards, Yakubov and Lieutenant Colonel Derganinov reportedly continued questioning, threatening Ardzinov with detention in the notorious basement of the MVD, where prisoners in pre-trial detention are often tortured. They released Ardzinov at 11:00 pm, ordering him to appear for questioning the next day.

Human Rights Watch's Tashkent-based representative provided to Detective Yakubov a written record of the U.S. Embassy medical officer's examination of Ardzinov, which recommended strict bed rest. Yakubov refused to rescind the order for Ardzinov to appear for questioning, however, calling the medical report a "fabrication." Ardzinov remains at home and has announced a hunger strike in response to the charges against him.

Mr. Ardzinov was honored by Human Rights Watch in 1996 for his human rights activities in Uzbekistan. Human Rights Watch believes that the arrest, beating, and confiscation of property, which coincide with his advocacy on behalf of individuals painted as government opponents, was intended to curb similar human rights work. The Independent Human Rights Organization of Uzbekistan has continuously provided the international community with information on the Uzbek government's crackdown against adherents of independent Islamic groups.

Human Rights Watch is also concerned that the brutal assault on Mr Ardzinov is merely the latest in a series of attacks sponsored by the government against him and other human rights defenders. In 1992, for example, security agents admitted to Mr Ardzinov to having planted an explosive device on the front door of his home which nearly killed him and which caused severe damage to his home. Subsequently, the government has denied him the right to leave the country (which it later lifted under foreign pressure); arbitrarily detained him when he was due to meet with visiting dignitaries or participate in human rights conferences; refused to grant legal status to the human rights organization which he directs; and was complicit in the several physical attacks on him in subsequent years, including only days before his arrest, on June 10. Ardzinov has also been subjected to near constant surveillance since the February 16 bombings in Tashkent. A Human Rights Watch report detailing attacks on human rights activists is forthcoming.

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