Former political prisoner Chuyan Mamatkulov won a case against the state, challenging a six-year stay in the prison “Jaslyk”, which has become a symbol of totalitarianism in modern Uzbekistan. On October 9, the Regional Civil court of Kashkadarya ruled to recover $ 5800 from the state.
The plaintiff told reporters of Uzbek service of Radio Liberty that on August 12 of this year he appealed to the court of Kashkadarya with a demand to recover from the state 500 million sums ($ 48,200 – ed.) as compensation due to the fact that he spent 878 days in the colony on the basis of illegal court verdict and then was acquitted.
The authorities ex post facto recognized the existence of a de facto concentration camp for enemies of the state convicted of terrorist activities and belonging to banned organizations. The word “Jaslyk” terrified the inhabitants of the country. Popular rumor spread information about the atrocities, and human rights organizations had difficulty in obtaining evidence of bullying and torture for almost two decades.
The statement of claim contained the demand to recover the amount of compensation from the Regional Prosecutor’s Office of Kashkadarya, the Regional Department of Internal Affairs of Kashkadarya, the Department for the Activities’ Coordination of the Internal Affairs Department of the city of Karshi and the finance department of the city of Karshi.
In 2004, Chuyan Mamatkulov became a member of Kashkadarya Branch of the Human Rights Society of Uzbekistan (HRSU). In 2005, he filed a lawsuit against then-President Islam Karimov, accusing him that, as the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, on October 9, 1996, he approved the disciplinary charter of the Armed Forces and therefore bears direct responsibility for violations of the rights of military personnel. For his human rights activities, he was arrested in August 2012, and in 2013 he was sentenced to ten years in prison. Among the eight articles of the charge were “kidnapping”, “violent illegal deprivation of liberty”, “encroachment on the constitutional order of the Republic of Uzbekistan”.
After his release in 2018, Chuyan Mamatkulov had been seeking the cancellation of the sentence for two years and, as the ACCA previously wrote, in March 2020, the criminal case against the activist was dropped for lack of corpus delicti. At the same time, the appeal instance of the Regional Criminal court of Kashkadarya acquitted the former reserve officer of the Armed Forces of Uzbekistan.
In September, the former prisoner of “Jaslyk” Elyor Tursunov also demanded compensation from the Uzbek state for an illegal prison sentence and torture during the investigation and being in the colony. Most likely, he will not be able to get the required $ 20,000. In the case of the partially satisfied claim of Chuyan Mamatkulov, full compensation is allegedly impossible due to the problems of the regional budget that had become impoverished during the pandemic.
So far there is no information and prerequisites for payment of compensation and full rehabilitation of 50 political prisoners. Will the decision of the court of Kashkadarya become a precedent? It’s still to be seen. According to experts, this does not even require the display of the political will of the country’s leadership, since the legislation allows the application of Article 83 “Grounds for rehabilitation” of the Criminal Procedure Code.
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