Human Rights Watch today welcomed the United Nations Committee against Torture's recommendations on torture in Uzbekistan. Using unusually strong language, the committee called on the Uzbek government to review all convictions handed down since 1995 that were based solely on confessions, recognizing that they may have been coerced through torture.
The committee leaves no doubt that torture is a serious problem in Uzbekistan," said Elizabeth Andersen, executive director of Human Rights Watch's Europe and Central Asia division. "Now the Uzbek government must follow through on the committee's recommendations to stop the daily acts of torture committed by its officials."
On May 8, the U.N. Committee against Torture, a body of ten independent experts, published its conclusions and recommendations for Uzbekistan, following its periodic review of that country's compliance with the U.N. Convention against Torture. Uzbekistan became a party to the convention in 1995.
During its review, the committee expressed concern about the "numerous, ongoing and consistent allegations of particularly brutal acts of torture by law enforcement personnel." The committee's conclusions and recommendations, issued last week, cited the "numerous" convictions based on confessions and the use of the criterion of "solved crimes" as the basis for promoting law enforcement personnel. These practices, it found, encourage the use of torture and ill treatment to force detainees to "confess."
The committee's recommendations called upon the Uzbek government to:
· "Review cases of convictions based solely on confessions in the period since Uzbekistan became a party to the Convention, recognizing that many of these may have been obtained through torture or ill-treatment, and, as appropriate, provide prompt and impartial investigation and take appropriate remedial measures";
· "Ensure that those who complain of torture and their witnesses are protected from retaliation"; · "Ensure in practice absolute respect for the principle of the inadmissibility of evidence obtained by torture";
· "Adopt measures to permit detainees access to a lawyer, doctor, and family members from the time when they are taken into custody, and ensure that doctors will be provided at the request of detained persons, rather than at the permission of prison officials";
· "Improve conditions in prisons and pre-trial detention centers, and establish a system allowing for unannounced inspections of pre-trial detention centers and prisons by credible impartial investigators, whose findings should be made public";
· "Take urgent and effective steps (i) to establish a fully independent complaints mechanism, outside the procuracy, for persons who are held in official custody, and (ii) to ensure prompt, impartial and full investigations into the many allegations of torture reported to the authorities, and the prosecution and punishment, as appropriate, of perpetrators."
Human Rights Watch has documented widespread torture and ill-treatment of detainees by law enforcement officials in recent years. Torture is regularly used in criminal investigations to compel detainees to confess or extract other testimony. It has become an unmistakable feature of the government's campaign against independent Islam, or those Muslims whose religious practices and affiliations fall beyond government-controlled Islam. In a report released in December 2000, Human Rights Watch detailed the methods law enforcement agents use, including asphyxiation and rape, to torture detainees, including those held on political and religious charges. The report found that police often threaten to torture detainees' family members, and sometimes abuse them in the presence of detainees. The report also described the stubborn pattern of impunity for those who commit acts of torture.
In an April 12 memorandum to the committee, Human Rights Watch documented several cases of torture, revealed in court hearings in March and April of this year, of individuals charged with alleged membership in the banned Islamic organization, Hizb ut-Tahrir. The U.N. committee also expressed concern about the lack of transparency in the Uzbek criminal justice system and the lack of statistics on detainees, complaints about torture, and investigations into such complaints. The government failed to provide the committee with requested information regarding the number of detainees and death penalty executions. The committee requested detailed information, for its next periodic review, on cases-both disciplinary and criminal-in which police and other law enforcement personnel were brought to justice for torture and related offenses.
