Uzbekistan: authorities don’t want to register public organizations

Excessive and strict registration requirements for organizations continue to be a “serious” obstacle to the work of independent NGOs. This is reported in the statement of the international human rights organization Human Rights Watch (HRW) on January 6.

Human rights defenders are confident that the officials of Uzbekistan should amend the law to allow independent groups, seeking to work on problematic issues such as human rights and forced labor, to register their NGOs.

Representatives of six initiative groups, which were interviewed by HRW, said that the country’s legislation contains many unnecessary requirements for registering an organization, but at the same time there are many reasons for rejecting an application, which allows officials to make arbitrary decisions.

According to Vladislav Lobanov, the research assistant at HRW for Europe and Central Asia, “International partners urge Tashkent to allow the non-governmental sector to operate freely, and the government needs to lend an attentive ear to these calls.”

In April 2020, the UN Human Rights Committee expressed concern that “the current legislation still restricts the right to freedom of association”, noting “the small number of independent NGOs, which were registered in the participant state [to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights] on their own initiative, and a high percentage of registration refusals.”

During the annual human rights dialogue in October 2020, the European Union also expressed concern about “a number of problems related to the registration of NGOs”. In 2019, the US State Department noted that the authorities of Uzbekistan continue to deny registration to “all other” local groups.

As a participant to the international human rights treaties, Uzbekistan has obligations to respect and protect freedom of association. In 2020, the country was admitted to the UN Human Rights Council for a period since January 2021. Uzbekistan also applied for a higher level of trade privileges with the European Union. In both cases, Tashkent promised to ensure that civil society would be able to operate freely, but no steps were taken by the government to fulfill those promises.

ACCA previously wrote about a selective approach of the Ministry of Justice to the emergence of new non-governmental non-profit organizations. Former political prisoner Agzam Turgunov, together with like-minded people, has so far unsuccessfully used all legal opportunities to register the organization “Human Rights House”.

On December 4, 2020, the Association of volunteers of Uzbekistan passed the state registration with the participation of lobbyists from government agencies. However, a group of young activists, trying to register the volunteer center “Oltin kanot”, has received 23 refusals to register NGO from the Justice Department of Tashkent since October 2018. Even the Swedish Walking Society cannot work officially.

Paragraph 19 of the resolution of the Cabinet of Ministers (dated March 10, 2014) contains a rule that “the registration authority has the right to send the documents submitted for state registration of NGOs to the relevant organizations for examination”. The list of organizations that have the right to conduct such an “examination” is not disclosed. According to the resolution, such organizations are required to provide their opinion letter within 20 days. The Ministry of Justice doesn’t inform the civic activists of any expert assessments. The resolution was appeared after the change of government in Ukraine and since then the security services have strengthened control over public activity.