The Uzbek government is waging a fierce campaign against local human rights activists, according to a Human Rights Watch report released today. The 32-page report details government attacks on a dozen of the country's most active and outspoken rights defenders.
One of the victims featured in the report, Ismoil Adylov, has not been heard from since he disappeared in custody on February 22, 2000
Following a series of bombings in the country's capital, Tashkent, in February 1999, the Uzbek government launched a brutal and vigorous campaign against rights activists. Law enforcement officers arrested, beat, threatened and otherwise harassed rights defenders in an effort to punish and silence them for their peaceful human rights activities. In a tactic unseen since the Stalin era, authorities forced several activists to attend public meetings in which speakers insulted them and accused them of "anti-state activity."
Law enforcement agencies have come down hardest on two unregistered human rights groups. These groups' members were actively involved in documenting arbitrary arrests, torture, and unfair trials that took place during the extensive police crackdown following the bombings.
"We deplore these attacks on rights defenders in Uzbekistan," said Holly Cartner, executive director of the Europe and Central Asia division of Human Rights Watch. "These brave men and women have committed their lives to protecting others and promoting the rule of law. They deserve to be praised, not imprisoned."
Two of the country's most prominent human rights defenders, Mahbuba Kasymova and Ismoil Adylov of the Independent Human Rights Organization of Uzbekistan, were sentenced to five and six years in prison on wholly spurious charges. Adylov, convicted in August 1999, is currently missing in detention, since prison authorities transferred him to an unknown location on February 22, 2000. He is seriously ill with a chronic kidney ailment, and prison authorities have denied him medicine provided by his family and access to medical treatment.
The Human Rights Watch report, Leaving No Witnesses: Uzbekistan's Campaign against Rights Defenders, documents physical mistreatment of defenders by police, and law enforcement agencies' use of psychological harassment, including prolonged solitary confinement, public denunciation, intimidating, and intrusive police surveillance, and threats of arrest.
The report and photographs are available on the web at https://www.hrw.org/reports/2000/uzbekistan/
