Interior Minister Pulat Bobozhonov said that 22,900 convicts are serving their sentences in the country’s penitentiary institutions.
“Uzbekistan ranks 105th among 222 states,” the minister said. – In fact, as a result of the reforms being carried out in Uzbekistan, the liberalization of the penal legislation in the last decade, the number of persons undergoing a sentence has significantly decreased. According to the real situation, today, the number of convicts in the penal system is 22.9 thousand. For every 100 thousand of the population, there are 67 persons. This is the first time these numbers are being heard.
He cited these figures in contrast to the 2019 data of the International Center for Prison Research (ICPR, Great Britain): in Uzbekistan, there are 150 convicts per 100 thousand of the population, in total there are 43.9 thousand people in prison.
According to him, the country now has information about the number of penal institutions and pre-trial detention centers, their legal addresses, the number of persons held there is not considered a secret. Pulatov did not fail to note that “the openness of this information shows an improvement in the indicators of Uzbekistan in this list by 70 stages. Today, at the Main Directorate for the Execution of Punishment of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, there are 43 institutions for the execution of punishment and 11 remand centers. Eighteen of the institutions are closed-type colonies, 25 are resettlement colonies. The indicators of detainees in relation to the capacity of the penal colony is 56.4 percent “.
Now, he added, the official websites will regularly publish information about the productive activities of penal institutions and manufactured products.
“Besides, there will be no secret information about the facts of death among persons held in penitentiary institutions and pre-trial detention centers, as well as the number of persons to whom medical coercive measures are applied,” stressed the minister.
The ACCA expert expressed doubts about Pulatov’s conviction, since real public control over the situation in the penitentiary system is not expected, and visits to colonies by employees of the Yuxalish movement are formal.
Pulatov’s statement itself was made in his interview with the National News Agency, but at the time of preparation of the publication, UzA did not post it on its website.
As ACCA has repeatedly written, it is the independent human rights defenders and journalists who, under threat of reprisals, regularly raise the alarm on all problems, which the minister briefly mentioned. The activists helped the ACCA to prepare publications on the use of torture in prisons and pre-trial detention centers. Based on the published materials, international observers have weighty arguments in their communications with officials who are forced to reckon with criticism.
As a result, it is the small initiative groups of activists who can say about their victory, forcing the authorities to declassify the data.
Leave feedback about this