On September 29, the activists Dilorom Dzhuraeva and Gulbahor Karimbekova from the initiative group “Open line”, together with the relatives of prisoners, just about left the allegations of torture in prisons with the Ombudsman. Earlier, with the problem of limiting the duration of visits, they visited the headquarters for the execution of sentences under the Ministry of Internal Affairs.
Saidbek Azimov (the assistant to the parliamentary human rights Ombudsman) was so angry with the women, who were demanding justice, that he called one of them an obscene word meaning a prostitute.
The Ombudsman’s assistant didn’t like the story of Surayo Khodzhaeva about the systematic torture of her son Amirbek Khodzhaev in the penal colony No. 11 (Navoi region). He was stripped naked and beaten. A particularly brutal torture was the so-called “butterfly”, when hands are brought behind the back through the neck and shoulder-blade, then handcuffed. According to the testimony of relatives, “they especially committed atrocities during the uraza [fasting], forcibly pushing food into their mouths, thus trying not to allow prisoners to keep the fast. In the same way, Khadicha Sayfutdinova’s husband was being bullied in the penal colony No. 11.
On September 28, the penal colony No. 11 was visited by the Ombudsman’s Commission, during which the colony’s administration hid the prisoners. “My husband has been in prison for two years and has been unsuccessfully seeking a meeting with representatives of the Ombudsman in the penal colony No. 7. However, in the responses, they write that during the conversation with him (which was not) and the inspection of the work of the colony, violations of rights were not revealed,” Gulbahor Karimbekova told the ACCA’s journalist.
Human rights defenders seek to obtain the right to participate in monitoring the rights of prisoners. The presence of independent observers in the verification procedures is undesirable for the leadership of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, as massive violations of prisoners’ rights will be exposed.
To neutralize the activities of human rights defenders, the authorities use various methods: from criminal prosecution to physical abuse. Uzbekistan also blocks the website of the Association “Human Rights in Central Asia” (France), which has been fighting for the civil liberties of prisoners for many years and regularly publishes information about torture.
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