“The practice of torture and cruel treatment of prisoners in the penal colony No.64/4 of the city of Kyzyl-Tep (Uzbekistan) requires urgent intervention by the international community.” This statement was distributed by the Association “Human Rights in Central Asia”.
Human rights defenders were informed that since September 29, 2019, ten prisoners have been held in the punishment cell of the penal colony No.64/4. “They were punished for contacting the prison administration with a request to give them new gloves and shoes for loading and unloading hot bricks from kilns; they all work in brick production,” the statement says. “The colony chief V.U. Rustamov and the head of the colony K.Sh. Karimov reacted extremely harshly to their request. Rustamov personally began to hit prisoners on the heels and other parts of the body with the baton, then they were sent to the isolation ward. On October 10, 2019, five of ten prisoners went on a hunger strike in protest to attract attention to their situation.”
The human rights organization also reports that the brick factory in the penal colony No.64/4 operates in three eight-hour shifts, 24 hours. In three kilns, 400 thousand bricks are produced per day. Every 10-15 minutes, vehicles with red-hot bricks leave the kilns and need to be loaded into the trucks. Even those prisoners who are not ordered to pay damages to the injured party are involved in this work, the statement emphasizes. “The labor of prisoners at this facility should be considered forced, contrary to Uzbekistan’s international human rights obligations and comparable to the exploitation of prisoners in the Stalinist Gulag.”
“Moreover, unloading and loading of bricks in a red-hot condition, even in the colony itself, is considered a particularly difficult type of work,” human rights activists say. “Six people should load a multi-ton Kamaz lorry with hot bricks during 15-20 minutes. Their salary is $10 per month. At the same time, the administration of the colony and also the administration of the brick factory do not provide adequate working conditions and safety measures to ease the labor and reduce the health risks for prisoners,” the statement said. “The gloves and shoes handed out to prisoners quickly become worthless; they burn out because they are not protected by a fire-resistant cover, as required by safety conditions.”
The Association “Human Rights in Central Asia” believes that according to the labor code, the employer is obliged to provide workers with special clothing and ensure safety conditions. “These requirements also apply to prisons. However, in this colony, convicts are forced to work in ordinary shoes, which quickly outwear (the rubber sole melts on hot bricks), and in ordinary cloth gloves that are torn and cannot be used after ten minutes of work,” human rights activists summarize. “Instead of considering the appeal of prisoners legally, the colony chief V.U. Rustamov, during two weeks, has been beating them and committing other violent acts against them. Every morning, he personally hits them on the heels with truncheon. Unable to withstand all this, one of the convicts hanged himself, but was saved on time by the officers of the colony. After that, Rustamov gathered all the prisoners of the colony on the parade ground and publicly, with all his strength, began to hit these ten prisoners on various parts of the body. At the same time, he announced “The President gave you two years of “mercy”. Now, this time has passed, everything will be as before. You can contact anyone. Nobody will help you!” And all these illegal actions occur, according to prisoners, with the approval of the head of the colony K.Sh. Karimov.
The Association “Human Rights in Central Asia” believes that the connivance of the head of the penal colony No.64/4 K. Sh. Karimov and the illegal actions of the colony chief V.U. Rustamov deserves the attention of the General Prosecutor’s Office of Uzbekistan, since they use torture, extrajudicial reprisals against prisoners of this institution and force them into slave labor.
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