Authorities in Uzbekistan continued to restrict and suppress independent human rights activism and freedom of expression, targeting activists, bloggers, and others with unfounded criminal charges, including “insulting the president online.” At least two bloggers remained in forced psychiatric detention in violation of their rights to liberty, security, and health. Consensual same-sex relations between men remained criminalized, and impunity for domestic violence remained the norm. Prisoners and detainees alleged torture and ill-treatment. Risks of forced labor and restrictions on freedom of association for agricultural workers in Uzbekistan persisted in 2025.
Accountability and Justice
May 13, 2025, marked the 20th anniversary of the Andijan massacre, when Uzbekistan’s security forces opened fire on a largely peaceful crowd of protesters and onlookers, including women and children, killing and wounding hundreds of people. The Uzbekistan government never commissioned an independent investigation into the massacre, and no one has been held accountable for the grave human rights crimes that occurred during and afterwards.
Authorities also continued to deny accountability for the deaths and grave injuries that occurred in July 2022 in Karakalpakstan, Uzbekistan’s autonomous republic, when security forces in Uzbekistan used unjustified force, including lethal force, to disperse mainly peaceful protesters.
In an opinion published in March, the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD) found that the detention of the Karakalpak lawyer and blogger Dauletmurat Tazhimuratov, whom authorities blamed for instigating the Karakalpakstan protests, was arbitrary and urged Uzbekistan to immediately release him and pay him reparations. Tazhimuratov continues to suffer ill-treatment and torture in prison. On March 24, Tazhimuratov’s attorney, Sergey Mayorov, detailed “mental and physical torture,” including alleged beatings by other inmates at the behest of prison officials and filthy conditions in Tazhimuratov’s cell.
Civil Society
Human rights activists continue to face harassment and persecution in retaliation for their peaceful human rights activism, and independent rights groups face obstacles to register with the Justice Ministry. In early May, the human rights defender Sharifa Madrakhimova’s passport was tampered with and destroyed, preventing her from traveling abroad to accept an award honoring her human rights work in Uzbekistan. On May 23, a Tashkent court ordered that Abdurakhmon Tashanov, the head of the human rights organization Ezgulik, pay several thousand dollars in a civil defamation case for an innocuous Facebook post.
The Justice Ministry in late May initiated legal action against Gulnoz Mamarasulova, director of the Uzbek branch of Association Central Asia, for alleged administrative offenses, including failure to inform the ministry of a change in event venue and failure to notify the authorities of foreign participants in an online event. On June 10, at a hearing about which she was not informed nor given an opportunity to attend, a Tashkent court found Mamarasulova guilty of “providing knowingly false information” and fined her.
In August, Dildora Khakimova, a wrongfully imprisoned activist serving a six-year prison sentence, was medically diagnosed as requiring chemotherapy and an operation. On September 4, her lawyer submitted an appeal to the Supreme Court asking for Khakimova’s release on medical grounds. Her co-defendant, the activist Nargiza Keldiyorova, also wrongfully imprisoned, continues to languish in prison, serving a six-and-a-half-year prison sentence.
Several Karakalpak activists were prosecuted in 2025 on charges of “attempting to overthrow the constitutional order” and/or “distributing material that threatens public security,” including two activists, Rinat Utambetov and Zetkerbay Abdramanov, who were arrested in Kazakhstan and Russia, respectively, before they were returned to Uzbekistan. On April 17, a Karakalpak court sentenced Utambetov to two-and-a-half years in a prison colony on both charges. In June, his sentence was upheld on appeal. On April 29, a Nukus Court sentenced Abdramanov to five years’ restricted freedom, a non-custodial sentence, for Karakalpakstan-related social media posts.
Freedom of Expression
Uzbek authorities continued to impose undue restrictions on freedom of expression, imprisoning people for non-violent offenses such as “insulting the president online.” Defamation and insult remain criminalized, despite President Mirziyoyev’s pledge in 2020 to decriminalize both offenses.
On February 28, the UN WGAD found that the forced psychiatric hospitalization of the blogger Valijon Kalonov was unfounded and arbitrary. Although the UN WGAD urged the government “to release him immediately” and grant Kalonov compensation and other reparations, at time of writing he remained in forced psychiatric detention.
A Karakalpakstan court ruled in mid-February that Dauran Allambergenova, an Uzbekistan citizen, should be put into forced psychiatric hospitalization after authorities prosecuted her on charges of “separatism” and “insulting the president online” in her Telegram posts. According to Vitaliy Ponamarev, a Central Asia expert, no less than 14 others have been criminally prosecuted in Karakalpakstan for alleged “separatist” posts on social media, in an ongoing crackdown on speech perceived as advocating for Karakalpakstan’s independence.
Torture and Ill-Treatment
Torture and ill-treatment persist as serious problems. Rights groups and local bloggers in February reported that two men, including Mustafa Tursynbaev, a blogger from Karakalpakstan, died in prison in separate incidents, and a third man ended up in the hospital unresponsive after police detained him.
A Tashkent court in mid-May found three police officers guilty of torturing suspects in detention. Two of three police officers on trial were sentenced to five years and one month in prison. The third, who was additionally charged with selling counterfeit money, was sentenced to 10 years in prison.
According to the rights group, Ezgulik, a 34-year-old man from Namangan sustained serious injuries in mid-August, after police beat him with batons and a stun gun. His mother told the media that police broke her son’s ribs, punctured his lung, bruised his liver and pancreas, and that doctors had to remove his spleen. At the time, authorities reported they had opened an investigation on charges of “intentional infliction of grievous bodily harm.”
On September 2, the father of ethnic Turkmen activist Zhumasapar Dadebaev appealed to Uzbekistan’s Ombudsperson alleging that his son, who had called for Karakalpakstan’s independence and is serving 12 years in prison on dubious criminal charges including “attempting to overthrow the constitutional order,” was being subjected to violence and ill-treatment by a prison guard.
Freedom of Religion
Uzbek authorities continue to restrict religious freedom by preventing registration of religious communities, subjecting former religious prisoners to arbitrary controls, and prosecuting Muslims on broad and vaguely worded extremism-related charges. A Karshi court in mid-December 2024 convicted eight Muslim men to between six and ten-and-a-half years in prison for meeting together to discuss Islam. In April, their sentences were upheld on appeal.
On February 20, President Shavkat Mirziyoyev signed a law introducing fines of approximately US$275 or up to 15 days in jail for parents or guardians who allow their children to receive "illegal" religious education.
Authorities also appear to be maliciously extending the prison sentences of already imprisoned Muslims. In June, the religious freedom watchdog Forum18 reported that a court sentenced two imprisoned Muslims to additional prison terms in March and May 2025.
Forced Labor
In March 2025, the Uzbek Forum for Human Rights, a nongovernmental organization, reported that the risk of forced labor persists in Uzbekistan’s cotton sector, which remains coercive and abusive for farm workers due to continued state control over annual cotton production.
The report noted that the 2024 harvest was marked by a “severe shortage of voluntary pickers” and that some district officials used coercion to mobilize pickers or extort money to pay for replacement pickers to meet cotton production quotas set by the central government. Agricultural workers and farmers continued to face constraints on their freedom of association and right to organize.
Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity
Uzbekistan continues to ignore calls to decriminalize consensual same-sex sexual conduct between men, punished under article 120 of Uzbekistan’s criminal code, a provision that the police use to harass gay and bisexual men and transgender women, including with threats of prosecution. State and non-state actors harass and discriminate against lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people.
A local rights group informed Human Rights Watch that authorities had prosecuted at least 16 people under article 120 in 2025. The group documented dozens of incidents of harassment by law enforcement bodies against LGBT people, in particular, blackmail, extortion, refusal to provide assistance due to a person’s sexual orientation, and threats.