In Uzbekistan, bloggers sue their offenders

The City Administrative court of Andijan began consideration of a complaint filed in November by blogger Khurshid Daliev against the press secretary of Andijan’s Administration Gulshana Kuchkarova. For almost two months, local authorities tried to prevent publicity and legal resolution of the situation.

 On the official Telegram channel, she called the critical blogger “riffraff, intriguer and traitor”. To strengthen the rhetoric, G. Kuchkarova “blamed” him for involvement in the Hizb ut-Tahrir party. In her accusatory post, she confused the flag of a terrorist organization considered in Uzbekistan with the symbol of East Turkestan, significant for Uyghurs in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region of China. The case was instituted against Gulshana Kuchkarova.

According to ACCA, on January 8, the City court of Andijan proved the slander and insult of the blogger by G. Kuchkarova. The press secretary was fined 5 575 000 sums ($590).

A positive decision for the blogger is designed to mitigate the effect of the arrest for 15 days of blogger Abdufatto Nuritdinov (a pseudonym of Otabek Nuritdinov on the network). Andijan’s citizen was punished for “slander, insult and disorderly conduct”. Under two articles of the Administrative Code, he was fined 12.38 million sums (about $1400). Such a severe sentence was imposed on the basis of an oral appeal from four local officials.

The second lawsuit was filed by the administrator of the Facebook group “I am Samarkand’s citizen”, Timur Sattarov. During the monitoring of the vote in the re-election to the lower house of Parliament, he was attacked by Jamshid Umarov, whom the blogger filmed while throwing several ballots. The blogger, accredited to the elections in Samarkand, was called gay during the attack, and they tried to take the camera away.

As it turned out, the voter in the past was a prosecutor and was in charge of the People’s reception office of the city of Samarkand. On January 7, law enforcement officers tried to reconcile Sattarov and Umarov at the Internal Affairs Directorate of Samarkand region, but the blogger insisted on filing a lawsuit under the article 41 (“Insult”) of the Administrative Responsibility Code.