For eight days, the head of the temporary detention center in Zaamin district of Jizakh region beat and raped the woman under investigation. Having launched an investigation into the initiated criminal case, the local Prosecutor’s Office is trying to ignore the facts of sexual violence and is conducting an investigation under Article 205 (“Abuse of authority or official powers”) and Article 221 (“Disobedience to the legal requirements of the administration of the institution for the execution of punishment”).
Journalists of the Uzbek service of Radio Liberty have at their disposal the materials of the case, without disclosing the officer’s personal data. It is known that from June 22 to June 30, the head of the temporary detention center tied up and brutally raped a suspect in fraud, counting on impunity. The victim herself describes the situation as follows: “He locked the office from the inside with a key, tied my hands and said that if I shouted, he would make it so that they add my term. He said that he had good relations with the investigator and the assistant prosecutor. For several days, he raped me orally and then vaginally. Out of fear, I was afraid to talk about it when I was in the temporary detention center. I felt bad because of the pain and the abomination I couldn’t tell about what happened, even when the ambulance arrived, because he was standing over me all the time,” said the victim.
After being transferred to a pre-trial detention center in Khavast district of Syrdarya region, the woman found the strength to write a statement about torture, after which the head of the temporary detention center was dismissed from his post and became a defendant in the criminal case. Using his connections in the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Prosecutor’s Office, he is now trying to avoid punishment under Articles 118 (“Rape”) and 119 (“Forcible satisfaction of sexual drives in an unnatural form”).
The ACCA expert is not sure about the retaliation of the Uzbek Themis, since “the security forces are reluctant to surrender their own and will try to help their colleague rapist, unless the Minister of Internal Affairs Pulat Babadjanov decides to sacrifice him to whitewash the image of the Department”.
ACCA previously wrote about an attempted rape of a prisoner. On May 11, 2020, it became known about the attack by an employee of the regime department on the prisoner Stella Aganova in the colony-settlement No. 42 (Tashkent region). The officer directly declared his lust, threatening to send her to the isolation ward in case of refusal, and then she wouldn’t see any pardon or parole.
Stella managed to contact her husband, and he was able, through his acquaintances, to inform the employees of the Department of own security about the lustful employee of the Chief Directorate of Execution of Sentences. When the guard stripped to his underwear and threw the prisoner, the process of violence was prevented by the operatives. After the publication of the ACCA, his sexual aggression in the Ombudsman’s report was identified only as “a case of degrading treatment”. The press service summed up that it requires an objective investigation and bringing the culprit to justice. There was no further information about the progress of the investigation. None of the officials publicly announced the punishment of the colony employee.
The information of human rights defenders about another fact of torture was left without consequences. Dilbar Tashmukhamedova told the ACCA journalist that she had told the officers of the Chief Directorate of Execution of Sentences about the sadist – the head of the colony No. 7 Batyr Yakubjonov, who raped a prisoner with a baton at his former job in colony No. 48. The Department demanded proof from her.
“How can I prove this if trusted human rights defenders and relatives are not allowed on the inspection commissions?” asked Dilbar.
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