Uzbekistan: 22 thousand people are serving sentences in prisons
In the country, more than 22 thousand people are serving their sentences in colonies and prisons. This became known at the meeting, which was organized by the Defense and Security Committee of the Legislative Chamber of the Parliament.
There are 54 penitentiary institutions in Uzbekistan: 18 closed-type institutions, 25 colonies and 11 pre-trial detention centers. According to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, more than 7 thousand (of 22 thousand) convicts are serving their sentences in colonies- settlements, and 14 thousand are in closed-type colonies.
It was stated at the meeting that in order to ensure transparency of the conditions of detention of convicts and prevent the negative consequences of torture and physical violence, all penitentiary institutions are equipped with 3280 observation cameras.
In order to prevent torture of detainees, interrogations are carried out in 484 recently organized interrogation rooms.
The President Mirziyoev, in his New Year’s message, promised to gradually reduce 25 colonies-settlements. He allowed the mitigation of the sentence to the person sentenced to imprisonment for the first time. Instead of sending to a colony-settlement, a citizen can be sent under probation supervision.
As a result of this mitigation, 6 thousand convicts will be given the opportunity to live at home under the control of makhalla activists. It’s planned to transfer the authority to change sentences to lighter ones and to apply for parole from the institution for the execution of punishments to the newly created Humanitarian Commission. The terms of the innovations were not specified.
ACCA has repeatedly raised the issue of torture in its publications. The Ombudsman of Oliy Majlis [Senate], Ulugbek Muhammadiev, ignores the information about the torture and simply answers the complainants that the facts were not confirmed.
