Uzbekistan: Prisoners were punished for contacts with human rights activists

On March 1, employees of the State Security Service conducted a thorough search in the colony-settlement No. 49 (Almalyk city, Tashkent region), revealingly leaving the things of the prisoner Sirozhiddin Bakhodirov all over the place

According to him, there were 5-6 Chekists. Formally, all the barracks were checked for the presence of prohibited items, but the most affected were four who had previously been convicted under Article 159 of the Criminal Code “Encroachments on the constitutional order of the Republic of Uzbekistan”.

It all started at 9 am, first of all, all Bakhodirov’s things were thrown from the nightstand onto the floor. He, as a religious person, was indignant at the barbaric attitude of the searchers to the Koran and the book with hadiths. They were torn to pieces and thrown at their feet.

“They humiliated human dignity and religion. They shouted, insulted with obscene words and threatened. They threw out all the medicines and personal belongings. Then I collected them throughout the barracks,” the prisoner told human rights activists. To his reproaches about such a barbaric attitude towards the holy books for Muslims, they briefly said, “This is our work.” In the barracks where Sirozhiddin lives, no one was searched except him.

On the eve of the incident, Tatyana Dovlatova, leader of the initiative human rights group “Open line”, and activist Klara Sakharova came to the colony and talked to him. Subsequently, this fact was used against the prisoner, accusing him of undesirable contacts with human rights activists.

Khalilillo Kariberdiyev, Mukhitdin Jalilov and Abdushukur Yunusov, also convicted under Article 159, were sent to a punishment cell after the search. The latter was punished for the fact that he, being visually impaired, didn’t properly greet the head of the colony.

According to Sirozhiddin, masks-shows were also started with the aim of finding records of violations of the law in the colony. According to the prisoners, businessmen allegedly pay the head of the colony $500 for providing practically free labor force. For a certain amount, you can bring narcotic substances into the colony or provide the services of prostitutes.

The human rights activists also became aware of the name and surname of the informer of the penitentiary administration. This person works for everyone: from the Prosecutor’s Office to the State Security Service. He specializes in denunciations, has privileges up to the point that he may not come out for inspections.

In a conversation with activists, Sirozhiddin noted the fact that he had never seen either the Ombudsman or representatives of public organizations in the colony. Although the Commissioner for Human Rights and her representatives made 120 monitoring visits in January-September 2021 to prevent torture in penitentiary institutions. Feruza Eshmatova, who has held the post of Ombudsman since February 2021, stated that since then, “I have almost never seen cases of torture in places of execution of punishment.” According to her, none of the interlocutors, who were interviewed during the visits, had complaints of torture, beatings or moral pressure.

Klara Sakharova asked Abdurahmon Tashanov to call Sirozhiddin, but the prisoner didn’t receive a call from the head of the human rights organization “Ezgulik”.