Uzbekistan: no elements of crime were found in kidnapping and torture of blogger
The blogger, Amir Sharifullin, was informed about the termination of the criminal case against his captors. In the actions of the attackers, the investigation did not find the corpus delicti. The activist made a post on the Facebook group “Tashkent-Demolition” after receiving a notification from the department.
In it, in particular, it is alleged that in the actions of one of the defendants, the investigation saw an offense under Article 52 (“Causing slight bodily harm”) of the Code of Administrative Responsibility. The case materials were referred to the Administrative Court.
The attackers were facing a charge under Article 277 (“Hooliganism”) of the Criminal Code. According to this article, the captors faced up to three years in prison.
Earlier, ACCA wrote about the kidnapping of the blogger. On December 10, 2019, two unknown persons were forcibly pushed the well-known Internet activist, Amir Sharifullin, into a car and taken him away. Two of the captors called themselves employees of the State Security Service. With tied hands and a bag on his head, he was taken to some guarded area near Tashkent.
For some time, he was beaten, especially trying to break his face into blood. Amir was forced to strip naked and apologize over the mobile phone for his posts on social network without indicating an offended person. This process was led by someone on mobile phone.
In a commentary to the ACCA journalist, the mother of the blogger, Farida Sharifullina, said, “It’s scary not that he was beaten, but that he was taken away somewhere and bullied. The scary thing is that there are people for whom it is simply work or the satisfaction of their ambitions.”
According to the official version of the Prosecutor General’s office concerning the events, the blogger intended to sell psychotropic drugs to two strangers, but deceived them. Earlier convicted young people, supposedly angry with this, beat the blogger.
Amir Sharifullin categorically rejects such an interpretation of events. Colleagues of the network activist regard the excess with the blogger as a sponsored act of terrorism, the purpose of which is to intimidate the blogging community.
