On December 10, the well-known Internet activist Amir Sharifullin was forcibly pushed into a car and taken away by two unidentified people. The kidnappers called themselves members of the State Security Service.
With tied hands and a bag on his head, Sharifullin was taken to some guarded place near Tashkent. For some time, he was beaten, especially trying to smash his face into blood. Amir was forced to strip naked and apologize on the mobile phone for his social network posts without indicating an offended person.
In the interview with ACCA, the mother of the blogger Farida Sharifullina said that “it’s scary not that they beat, but that they took him away and mocked there. It’s terrible that there are people for whom it’s simply work or the satisfaction of their ambitions”.
According to Amir himself, even by phone it was visible how someone was mad. “He even laughs! Beat him till he bled! Smash his face!” said the blogger. “And they tried to smash my face. One hit seven, eight times, and could not. The second one said “Idiot! You cannot break his nose. Look, how to do it. Only with the third or fourth attempt, he could break it. Either they couldn’t get there, or they did not succeed. Then he began to ask by phone, to consult with someone “Is it ok?” And the third video, the third version, was recorded when I was already covered in blood.”
Then they let the blogger get dressed, blindfolded him again and then dropped him off in one of the districts of Tashkent. Not wanting to contact law enforcement agencies, Amir did not immediately file an application, but only on December 13 at the insistence of other journalists. However, his statement was not accepted, and the victim was not sent for medical examination even if there were obvious signs of torture.
Journalist Alexey Volosevich in the interview with ACCA said that he considers the excess as an act of terrorism, the purpose of which is to intimidate the blogging community.
Now the Internet activity of Uzbek users is markedly reduced. They be afraid of pressure from the authorities. In one of the conversations with reporters, Mayor of Tashkent, Jahongir Artykhodzhaev, threatened to break the life of journalists in six seconds, “turning” them into gays.
In publications, ACCA has repeatedly written about the arrests of bloggers. The last act of violence by the authorities was the isolation of the blogger Nafosat Ollashukurova in the neuropsychiatric dispensary.
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