On September 13, unknown people detained Karakalpak activists. This was reported by the Information center “Shirak”, based outside of Uzbekistan.
Several men in civilian clothes are said to have taken Zhankeldi Zhaksymbetov, leader of the Azatlyk Party of Karakalpakstan, out of a rented apartment in Almaty. “We don’t know the location of Zhankeldi Zhaksymbetov. Activists say that he was abducted by officers of the State Security Service of Uzbekistan,” the Center said in its press release.
On the same day, unknown blogger and dissident Koshkarbay Toremuratov was detained. His wife told about the visit of two men. They took him away “because there are some questions” and promised to release him soon. A few hours later, Koshkarbay called home and said that he was leaving for Uzbekistan. He said that he would be accompanied to Uzbekistan by the employee of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Uzbekistan, Lieutenant Colonel Nikolai Babaniyazov. According to him, Koshkarbay was charged under Article 244-1 of the Criminal Code “Production, storage, distribution or demonstration of materials containing a threat to public security and public order” and Article 159 “Infringement on the constitutional order of the Republic of Uzbekistan”.
Since 2017, Koshkarbay has been running social media channels about human rights violations in Karakalpakstan after serving more than three years in an Uzbek penal colony (since 2014) for allegedly illegally crossing the state border. He then received parole and left for Kazakhstan, where he was reunited with his family.
Prior to his current arrest and actual deportation to Uzbekistan, he intended to make a presentation on the July suppression of the protests in Nukus, which resulted in loss of life, at a session of the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights in Warsaw.
This is not the first time that the Security Service of Uzbekistan has abducted civil activists in Karakalpakstan. According to Shirak, Nikolai Babaniyazov supervised the detention and torture of civil activists in Karakalpakstan. In particular, the Nurlepesovs (the father and son) and Sagyndyk Nurimbetov are mentioned.
Earlier ACCA wrote about how the authorities of Uzbekistan put pressure on publicly significant participants in the July protests, forcing them to repent and fully admit their guilt before the state. According to an ACCA source in Karakalpakstan, there has been moral pressure on their relatives for two months.
