At the end of March of this year, under the pretext of public danger, the authorities detained 68-year-old Shaberdi-hadji Suyunov from the mahalla gathering of citizens “Surkhon sokhili” in Kumkurgan district of Surkhandarya region. Independent Uzbek journalist Ulugbek Khaydarov (Ulugbek Ashur), who is an emigrant, spoke about this in an episode of the video program “Negativ”.
As the independent website Asiaterra clarifies, a group of employees of the Regional Prosecutor’s Office of Surkhandarya forcibly put the activist into a car and drove away in an unknown direction, without notifying any of the aksakal’s [senior clansman] relatives. A search was conducted in the detainee’s house with the participation of at least fifty representatives of law enforcement agencies.
The hearing on the case of Shaberdi-hadji Suyunov in the District Court for criminal cases of Kumkurgan was closed. Even the detainee himself didn’t know about it.
Much to Suyunov’s surprise, he was charged with a standard set of charges in such cases – articles of the Criminal Code: 139 (“Defamation”), 140 (“Insult”) and 165 (“Extortion”). Moreover, the ruling on the measure of restraint (detention) was issued by the court in absentia, so that the accused didn’t know about it.
Investigators of the regional level were involved in the fabrication of the criminal case against the pensioner, which, according to the media, ‘eloquently testifies to its ordered nature’.
Mr. Karimov (the head of the Department for solving especially grave crimes of Regional Prosecutor’s Office of Surkhandarya), Mr. Ibragimov (the prosecutor of Kumkurgan district) and Mr. Ergashev (the presiding judge) disseminated deliberately false information about the extremely dangerous personality of the detainee, accused of committing a serious crime and who was wanted. According to them, the detention was forced, since Suyunov was allegedly looked for a long time. According to the prosecutor, he ignored the subpoena and even specially hid from representatives of law enforcement agencies.
The version with a mythical escape easily crumbles, taking into account the copy of the official certificate that Ulugbek has at his disposal. It was issued by Ibragimov, the head of the District Communications center of Kumkurgan. From its content it follows that for the period from March 1 to March 28 (the day that the certificate was issued) of the current year, neither the Prosecutor’s Office, nor the court, nor the Internal Affairs Department sent any subpoenas addressed to the fugitive Suyunov. That is, on March 26, the day of his arrest and trial, he sat quietly at home, unaware of his search.
The certificate of the mahalla committee “Surkhon sokhili”, where Shaberdi-hadji lives, states that in the period from March 1 to March 30, ‘he didn’t go anywhere outside the place of permanent residence’. The accusers also ignored the document.
To this day, an elderly sick person (Suyunov has diabetes) continues to be held in the pre-trial detention center and, according to relatives, he is not allowed to give even insulin. According to available information, the elderly prisoner often vomits blood.
Suyunov’s fault is in the criticism of high-ranking officials. Suyunov mentioned on the network the name of the head of the presidential administration, Zainilobiddin Nizomiddinov. The activist found himself in this situation because of the demonstration of Ulugbek Ashur’s video channel to subscribers about the ruins of the bridge in Kumkurgan, which was built back in 1936. Commenting to the camera on the deplorable state of the infrastructure of the district and the whole Surkhandarya region, he notes with indignation that the funds allocated for improvement from the state budget are uncontrollably used for other purposes. Addressing personally President Shavkat Mirziyoyev, Suyunov, in particular, naively asked to find justice for the presumptuous official.
The opinion about the head of the regional administration Tura Bobolov was also impartial. According to Suyunov, he bought a mansion in Tashkent for $900,000. “I wrote openly about this, backing up my statements with concrete facts. Bobolov called me to his office and said that the President had given him this house. How is it, Mr. President, since when do you make such generous gifts to regional hokims? If you talk about it, then you become bad. If you remain silent, the situation will be deplorable,” he said in his video speech.
Tura Bobolov has a reputation for oppressing free speech. As ACCA previously wrote, during the trial in Muzrabad district of Surkhandarya region, this was clearly shown in the case of 41-year-old video blogger Otabek Sattoriy. He was found guilty of libel and extortion and sentenced to 6.5 years in prison. State prosecutor Abbos Razzykov then requested 11 years in prison for the blogger. (For comparison: Gulnara Karimova received 13 years for all her crimes, and former Prosecutor General Rashid Kadyrov received 10 years in prison).
The authorities, with their on-duty rhetoric about the law and reforms, are not embarrassed by the persecution of elderly activists. Human rights activists are beaten and persecuted, as it was with the 67-year-old leader of the initiative group “Open line”, Tatyana Dovlatova.
ACCA publications described the tragedy of 70-year-old social activist Karomat Ashirova from Angren, who was arrested in June 2021. She was initially charged under five criminal articles and taken into custody. On February 18, 2022, the court of the city of Almalyk decided to restrict the freedom of Karomat for a period of 5 years under house arrest. The same fate befell her colleague, 45-year-old Zukhra Abdurakhmanova. The authorities intimidated anyone who could disseminate this information in a timely manner.
The circumstances of the case initiated against them in June 2021 turned into discrediting the bodies of inquiry, the Prosecutor’s Office and the city administration. Karomat Ashirova had a reputation as a critic of the actions of various state institutions. Both activists were ordered to pay a $350 fine to the state. After deducting 8 months spent in custody, the period of stay under house arrest for Ashirova is 4 years 4 months, for Abdurakhmanova – 4 years and 6 months.
The indictment alleges that ‘Ashirova Karomat Mirsoatovna, for many years, made illegal demands to state authorities and local self-government on the problems of citizens that are not related to her, and [engaged in] holding illegal rallies to satisfy these demands, discredited the administration of Angren city and other state organizations.
“A bad tendency has been identified. The authorities managed to mix the protest moods of young activists, intimidate or bribe active leaders of public opinion,” the ACCA expert concludes. “On the social network, you now increasingly come across critical publications of brave people who are well over 50 and have only basic skills in distributing their content.”
An Asiaterra journalist recently noted that the Uzbek human rights community is marking time. In fact, the authorities are not at all interested in the formation of a truly strong civil society, since it’s in it that they see a threat to their own well-being and security. It’s clear that they absolutely don’t need an alternative in the form of independent opposition critics, although responsible persons keep reporting on a conforming to democratic values climate in the field of civic activism.
“In an effort to please the world, the state is fighting to improve performance in various ratings. However, it hasn’t got rid of the birthmark of post-Soviet totalitarianism,” the ACCA expert sums up. “As long as activists are cynically persecuted (even old one), it’s too early to talk about the success of reforms in the country. The principled stand of international organizations is required here.”
