Uzbekistan: beating of journalist goes unpunished

The journalist of the independent publication Hook, Vlad Avdeev, was beaten and robbed by two unknown persons, in turn, the law enforcement bodies did not react significantly.

As Vlad writes in his telegram channel, on July 23, two men attacked him, hit him in the nose (the injuries were recorded by an ambulance doctor), took away his phone, and then, threatening with reprisals, forced to reacquire it back. The journalist did not have a large sum of money handy, so he was forced to let them into his apartment and give the money there.

This case falls under Articles 164 of the Criminal Code Robbery, 165th Extortion, and 142nd Violation of the inviolability of the private property of the Criminal Code.

After the criminal incident, the journalist wrote a statement to the Uchtepa DSoIA in Tashkent. After a week of silence, and only with the assistance of the press secretary of the Central Internal Affairs Department, they answered him, then disappeared again for two weeks.

Even the district police officer did not take any action. Vlad had to personally copy the recordings from the surveillance cameras in front of his entrance. The video became the main evidence, but the case is not open.

He wrote the explanatory note only on August 13 – 22 days after the attack. As Vlad assures, “all this became possible only after sending letters to the city and district prosecutor’s offices and a call to the Ministry of Internal Affairs hotline.”

After analyzing the situation, the journalist came to the conclusion that the attack was not accidental and related to his public activities.

“With my article on transgender people and numerous posts in support of the LGBT community on my blog,” the journalist writes. “I think so, but I can’t prove it in any way, and therefore let it remain only my opinion”.

The pressure on bloggers and journalists in Uzbekistan grows when they become a source of undesirable content for the authorities. In August, the father of blogger Shavkat Khasan received a call from people allegedly from the security department and threatened that his son would be jailed if he continued to write.

An unknown person in a conversation called Shavkat a traitor to his homeland, after which his father had a heart attack. The father asked his son not to post on the Internet anymore, otherwise he would disown him.