Uzbekistan: blogger faces 10 years in prison

During three days of the work, the investigators decided to bring charges against the detained blogger Otabek Sattoriy under the second part of article 165 “Extortion” of the Criminal Code, which entails imprisonment for a term of 10 to 15 years. At the beginning of the investigation, a light penalty was considered – restriction of freedom up to 5 years or imprisonment for the same period.

Earlier, ACCA wrote about the arrest of a blogger from Surkhandarya region, known for his criticism of local authorities. The Investigation Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Uzbekistan charged Sattoriy with extorting cash and a mobile phone from unknown people.

Journalists’ investigations completely refute these allegations. The journalist of the independent online edition “Asiaterra” has reconstructed the picture of the incident. On December 29, 2020, the blogger, together with the journalist of Effect.uz, Farhod Ismailov, filmed a report on pricing in the market in Sherabad regional center. As a result of a scuffle with unknown persons, Otabek’s mobile phone was broken; the attackers didn’t like the shooting. The local district police officer, who watched the attack, didn’t react to the situation. Then, two of them went to the hokim Ziyodulla Davlatov and reported the incident. In a telephone conversation with the head of the district, the head of the market administration assured that he would compensate for the damage, but later he simply wrote a denunciation against Otabek.

The peaceful resolution of the conflict suited the journalist and blogger, who didn’t write a statement to the police department. This circumstance became the starting point in the formal criminal prosecution of Otabek. On January 29, they brought him a package with a telephone. As soon as he got out of the car with the parcel, operatives surrounded him.

The employees didn’t know about the video surveillance camera and therefore were in no hurry to leave, having previously blocked the gates of the house.

The relatives of the arrested blogger told Asiaterra’s journalist that he was in the detention center of Termez. According to the testimony of the lawyer Shavkat Shakirov, during three days of arrest, Otabek changed three investigators. The first of them, an investigator from the Regional police department, Feruz Alibayev, was especially remembered for his impudence.

“It was some kind of pogrom, as if they were looking for a recidivist,” says the arrested man’s father. “5 hours after Otabek’s arrest, it was already about 10 pm, about twenty people with attesting witnesses burst into the house. They hastily read us the article 165 and briefly showed the prosecutor’s sanction for a search. Then, a nightmare began. The whole house was turned upside down, they even rummage in women’s things. They took two work computers of my son, two processors, five flash drives, his briefcase with documents and all work papers. We just can’t understand why they needed a children’s tablet, especially five Otabek’s jackets…”

The second part of the article 165 speaks about a dangerous recidivist acting as part of an organized group. The younger sister of the blogger Farangiz Alimova believes that they decided to remove her brother away for the reason that the visit of the President Shavkat Mirziyoev to the region is supposedly scheduled for a short time, and Otabek’s excessive activity, revealing various shortcomings and corruption phenomena, is undesirable for the local authorities.

She is also sure that everything that happens around her brother is a scenario prepared by the administrative authorities of Sherabad region. According to her, one of the security officials, being outside, constantly conducted telephone conversations with the head of this district, reporting on the situation almost every ten minutes.

According to Farangiz, the journalist of Effect.uz Farhod Ismailov will be charged with “preliminary criminal conspiracy with the aim of enrichment”. His house was also searched, but he remains at large. Investigator Khushbakov and judge Yuldashev just mentioned him in their decisions and definitions as “a person whose identity couldn’t be established”.

As a colleague from Asiaterra, who didn’t give his name due to security reasons, told the ACCA’s journalist, that this is a provocation using administrative resources to put pressure on active members of society.

“There are journalists, bloggers and human rights activists who have their own point of view on socio-economic problems, different from those dictated from above,” the journalist noted. The hastily fabricated criminal case against the blogger Otabek Sattoriy from Surkhandarya contains a whole “bunch” of procedural and other violations used by the authorities against the “obstinate” activists.”

The journalist emphasized that the social activist, who likes “poking his nose into other people’s affairs” has annoyed the oligarchs from local authorities. So, such an ending was quite predictable. It fits into the classic scheme of persecution for professional activities.

“If the organizers of this show trial didn’t disdain to incriminate the blogger with a “heavy” article, “forgetting” to invite the second participant of the “criminal conspiracy” to the court, then is it worth remembering the law at all?” he added.

In a commentary to Gazeta.uz, the lawyer noted that Otabek Sattoriy doesn’t admit strongly his guilt “either under part 1 or part 2 of article 165 of the Criminal Code”.

“Here we are talking about compensation for damage. If Otabek was a simple citizen, and not a blogger, then, as we see in practice, a criminal case will not be initiated. This is considered a civil law case. As for the phone, while filming the market, the phone was taken away from him, which was then damaged. Otabek turned to the hokim of Sherabad region concerning the damage to his phone. They promised him to resolve the issue. They talk about blackmail, but in fact there is no material about blackmail. What could he post on social media if the video, that he had filmed, was deleted?” he declared.

The lawyer said that no force was used against Otabek Sattoriy, but after his arrest, the deputy chief of the police department said that “this happens when you interfere in politics; we can put you in jail at any time.”

Even before being taken into custody and a criminal case of extortion, Otabek Sattoriy said during the video broadcast that they were trying to imprison him for 15 days. The British Ambassador responded promptly to the situation by writing on Twitter.

“If there is no convincing evidence of extortion, then this arrest is not only alarming, but also another action that undermines freedom of speech,” the diplomat wrote. “It’s important that the law enforcement authorities do their job and protect the public, but it’s also important that they provide evidence that this is not just an arrest for criticism.”

“The authorities of Uzbekistan should immediately release blogger Otabek Sattoriy and drop the faked charges against him,” said Gulnoza Said (CPJ Europe and Central Asia Program Coordinator) on February 8.