Uzbekistan: officers from the Andijan Municipal Department of the Interior beat citizen again

On September 13, a resident of Andijan was beaten. The investigation was launched after the victim’s statement, his name was not disclosed. The employees of the city department of internal affairs are suspected of the crime. Another Andijan citizen on June 22, 2020, died after being tortured in the department.

Because of the traffic accident, the driver of the Municipal Department of Internal Affairs showed aggression and, with the connivance of his colleagues, smashed the face of another citizen. The victim managed to shoot a video, which was then promptly posted on the network by Uzbek bloggers Zafarbek Solizhonov and Nurbek Alimov.

A case under Article 109 of the Criminal Code (intentional minor bodily harm) was initiated on the well-publicized crime. The progress of the investigation is monitored by the Prosecutor’s Office of the Andijan region.

As ACCA previously posted, on November 27, 2020, the regional criminal court found six former officers of the Andijan police department guilty and announced the verdict: five were sentenced to sentences of up to 10 years, the sixth participant in the crime will spend one year in a penal colony. While 19 managers and employees were disciplined.

“The extremely harsh punishment was supposed to show the uncompromising attitude of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the prosecutor’s office in the fight against torture,” the ACCA expert notes. – “Now it is clear that nothing has changed: they mock and beat, feeling the support of their superiors.”

In July of this year, the deputy of the Andijan City Council, Zhakhongir Zhiyanov, told about the forceful detention of a resident, Imran Shakhabov, with a broken arm. The regional police department denied any beatings. The city prosecutor’s office began investigating the incident but has not yet reported the results.

ACCA recently published an article about how Interior Minister Pulat Babadzhanov limited himself to a reprimand to the head of the department’s press service, Shokhrukh Giesov. He spoke of those who died after torture in law enforcement agencies as “god-damned people,” drunkards, and hooligans.