Uzbekistan: mother fears for her son’s life in custody

The ACCA editorial office received a letter from Dilbar Tashmukhammedova, the mother of a prisoner at the colony № 7 (Tashkent region). The text is published with some stylistic and spelling corrections. The content of the letter reflects the real situation in the country’s penitentiary institutions.

“On March 25, 2021, I visited my son Sarvar at the penal colony № 7. He is illegally serving term in a fabricated criminal case by the Prosecutor General’s Office. He was sentenced to 18 years in prison for the murder of a man who was killed by the Interior Ministry operatives. During the night of the abduction (on December 5, 2017), operatives of the Department of Internal Affairs of Chilanzar district and the Department of Internal Affairs of Tashkent city tortured and forced him to take the murder upon himself. Otherwise, my son faced an almost certain death.

After the previous meeting on March 12, my son was immediately sent to the isolation ward. They forced him to write a note, recording it on video, that my son voluntarily wanted to go to the isolation ward for personal safety. Into a cell without light, water and heating! Where it’s dark, damp and full of rats! Before that, they threatened to “throw” the violation of the regime on the son, as it was already done in 2020 during the quarantine.

The rights of prisoners are not respected in the colony. Letters are not sent, and they don’t give my messages to my son either. For the second year, a long date has been banned. For 5 minutes of communication with a familiar prisoner in the colony, they began to persecute and mock at him.

There is also an elite cell in the colony for an unusual prisoner with AIDS. It’s comfortable there and there is a TV. The administration of the colony № 7 respects and protects him. To humiliate my son, he is given leftovers and scraps of food from a sick neighbor.

Previously, I appealed to various authorities regarding the murder of prisoner Asliddin Fozilov on May 29, 2020. A 26-year-old boy was tortured in sight of my son. The next victim was to be Sarvar. On June 6, 2020, the head of the Main Directorate for the Execution of Sentences saved him from certain death by sending him to Sangorod for treatment in a private ward. My son has been seriously ill since childhood. Diagnosis is post-traumatic encephalopathy. [Comment: Earlier, ACCA wrote about the torture of Sarvar in the colony. The publication forced the Main Directorate for the Execution of Sentences to transfer him to a special hospital.]

Then, without knowledge of the Main Directorate for the Execution of Sentences and the head of Sangorod, his deputy Kakhramon with the “tousled” Salomakhin, the head of the special unit of Sangorod Sarvar, established an underground “business” in six wards.

The above-mentioned “businessmen” didn’t want to obey the head of the Main Directorate for the Execution of Sentences, forced Sarvar to sign an application for employment and immediately write a letter of resignation without specifying a date. My son was informed that, according to the verdict, the librarian’s salary in the amount of 700,000 sums would be transferred by the accounting department to the victims’ account.

I learned that Sarvar was being asked for US $ 600. I have no such money! And then the extortionists sent my sick son back to the colony № 7, headed by the sadist Botyr Yakubzhanov.

The assistant to the special prosecutor of Tashkent city reacted to my appeal of February 27, 2021 about Yakubzhanov’s lawlessness. He managed to ignore both Fozilov’s murder and the facts of my son’s torture.

After checking the colony № 7 by the Special Prosecutor’s Office, the torture of Sarvar continued again. In the isolation ward because of the terrible conditions of detention, on March 18, my son had an attack of his disease; he miraculously survived. Only after that a heater appeared in the cell. For six days he was in a cold and dark cell with rats, without light and water. The life of my son was attempted many times in the colony! He is seriously ill! I fear for the health and life of my son!

For the fourth year now, standard answers and runarounds have been coming to my complaints! All my appeals to the presidential administration are sent to those I am complaining about. From the criminals themselves, I receive the same type of answers: “Violations have not been identified… If you are not satisfied with our answer, you can turn to a higher authority.”