Права человека в Узбекистане: систематические нарушения

Issues about human rights in Uzbekistan

Human rights in Uzbekistan have been described as "abysmal" by Human Rights Watch, and the country has received heavy criticism from the UK and the US for alleged arbitrary arrests, religious persecution and torture employed by the government on a regional and national level. Amnesty International stated that freedom of expression, association, and peaceful assembly continue to be restricted, and that relations between gay men are illegal.

Religious literature which is not state approved, including the Bible, is often confiscated and destroyed. Forum 18, a human rights organisation based in Norway, has documented raids by Uzbek police in which participants in unregistered religious services were beaten, fined, threatened and intimidated. In August 2005 one of the organisation's reporters was detained and deported by the authorities at Tashkent airport in Uzbekistan. The Barnabas Fund also states that Pastor Dmitri Shestakov was imprisoned for 4 years for Christian activities.

U. S. based Human Rights Watch said in November 2007 that Uzbek prison authorities routinely beat prisoners and use electric shocks, asphyxiation and sexual humiliation to extract information and confessions. According to a forensic report commissioned by the British embassy, in August 2002 two prisoners were boiled to death. According to a report by the Human Rights Watch, Muslim prisoners have been tortured for praying.

Domestic violence against women is a serious problem in Uzbekistan. A survey by UNICEF found that 69.6% of women agreed that a husband is justified to beat or hit his wife under certain circumstances (including 61.2% if the wife goes out without telling him, and 47.9% if she argues with him).

Uzbekistan's "freedom on the net status" is "not free" in the 2012 and 2013 Freedom on the Net reports from Freedom House. Uzbekistan maintains the most extensive and pervasive filtering system among the CIS countries and has been listed as an Internet enemy by Reporters Without Borders since the list was created in 2006. The OpenNet Initiative found evidence that Internet filtering was pervasive in the political area and selective in the social, conflict/security, and Internet tools areas during testing that was reported in 2008 and 2010. Uzbekistan prevents access to websites regarding banned Islamic movements, independent media, NGOs, and material critical of the government's human rights violations. Some Internet cafes in the capital have posted warnings that users will be fined for viewing pornographic websites or website containing banned political material. The main VoIP protocols SIP and IAX used to be blocked for individual users; however, as of July 2010, blocks were no longer in place. Facebook was blocked for a few days in 2010. Internet censorship in Uzbekistan increased following the events of the Arab Spring in 2011. Additional websites are blocked, contributors to online discussion of the events in Egypt, Tunisia, and Bahrain have been arrested, and news about demonstrations and protest movements have been blocked. The BBC website was unblocked in late 2011, but since January 2012, specific pages dealing with the Arab Spring have been inaccessible. ISPs and mobile phone operators are required to report mass mailings of "suspicious content" and to disconnect networks upon authorities’ requests. The principal intelligence agency in Uzbekistan, the National Security Service (SNB), monitors the Uzbek segment of the Internet and works with the main regulatory body to impose censorship. As all ISPs must rent channels from the state monopoly provider, available evidence strongly suggests that Internet traffic is recorded and monitored by means of a centralized system. SNB officers frequently visit ISPs and Internet cafés to monitor compliance. In 2014, the entire country's internet and mobile messaging networks were stopped over a three to four hour window for 'urgent repairs' co inciding almost precisely with national university entry exams.

The U. S. State Department's 2004 report on human rights in Uzbekistan found limited improvement. While no detainees died while in police custody, police negligence led to the deaths of four prisoners. National Security Service officials "tortured, beat, and harassed" citizens but human rights activists were allowed to investigate instances in which prisoners died and activists suspected torture as the cause of death. Security forces did not arrest journalists and three were released. Some non governmental organizations, most notably the Open Society Institute, were not allowed to register with the government, and thus prevented from work in Uzbekistan.

In 2005 the Uzbek government arrested Sanjar Umarov, an opposition politician, and raided the office of Sunshine Uzbekistan, an opposition political alliance. United States Senators Bill Frist and Richard Lugar introduced a resolution calling on the Uzbek government to make sure Umarov "is accorded the full measure of his rights under the Uzbekistan constitution to defend himself against all charges that may be brought against him in a fair and transparent process, so that individual justice may be done". Tashkent citizens found the body of Kim Khen Pen Khin, a Pentecostal, on 11 June 2005. According to one another Pentecostal church member police treated church members worse than animals, several beating three of them. One, a pastor, had a concussion. Police initially accused Kural Bekjanov, another church member, of murdering Khin, but dropped the charges against him two days later. When police discovered his religion they broke his ribs and put needles under his fingernails to get him to renounce Christianity. In August the Uzbek government detained Elena Urlayeva, a human rights activist, on charges of disseminating anti government leaflets. In October a Tashkent court ordered Urlayeva to undergo psychiatric treatment in a mental health facility in a legal preceding in which neither she nor her lawyer were present. The government released Urlayeva on 27 October after officials abused and beat her.

An unknown individual strangled Karina Rivka Loiper, secretary to Rabbi Abe David Gurevich, and her mother on 12 June in Tashkent. While police ruled it a robbery, the Federation of Jewish Communities of the Commonwealth of Independent States called for an investigation. Jewish community leaders said a spokesman for the Committee on Religious Affairs warned them against "politicizing" Loiper's death. On 29 April 2006, human rights workers Azam Farmonov and Alisher Karamatov were arrested and allegedly tortured by state security forces. They are currently serving prison terms on charges of extortion that Amnesty International, and Front Line have condemned as politically motivated. On 25 October the Karshi Khanabad court fined two Baptists from Ferghana and Tashkent US$438 while four others were given smaller fines for participating in unregistered religious activity after police raided a Baptist church in the city. 30 police raided a Pentecostal church in Tashkent on 13 November. Another raid on 27 August yielded 38 unapproved pieces of literature. Uzbek state television played a show entitled "Hypocrites" on 30 November and 1 December, in which Protestant missionaries were said to have engaged in plagiarism and drug use. The program said, "On the pretext of financially helping people in need, [missionaries] instill their own teachings in these people's minds". Converts are "zombies". Begzot Kadyrov, specialist of the State's Religious Affairs Committee, commenting on the program, said, "Turning away from the religion of one's ancestors is not only one's own mistake but could also lead to very bad situations between brothers, sisters and between parents and their children". Converts to Christianity are "lost to family, friends and society".

The International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights (IHF), Human Rights Watch, and the International Federation for Human Rights International asked the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva to continue monitoring human rights in Uzbekistan on 22 March 2007. Aaron Rhodes, executive director of the International Helsinki Federation, criticized the suggestion, saying, "What that would really imply would be that the United Nations would reward the Uzbek government for its repressive policies and its refusal to cooperate with the Council. If the Human Rights Council can't take up the problems in Uzbekistan, then what is it for? ".

Uzbek police detained Umida Niazova, a human rights activist who worked for local group Veritas and Human Rights Watch in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, on 21 December 2006 in the Tashkent airport. Fearing criminal prosecution, she left the country for Kyrgyzstan, returning on the advice of her lawyer who said that no criminal case would be brought against her. At the border, she was arrested and stood trial on charges of illegally crossing the border, smuggling and distribution of illegal content. Holly Cartner, a director at Human Rights Watch alleges that "Niazova was threatened with these charges for her human rights work". On May 1, 2007, an Uzbek court convicted Niazova and sentenced her to seven years in prison, on charges of "preparing or disseminating material containing a threat to security and order". The Uzbek government alleged she was storing on her laptop literature by an Islamist extremist group. Niazova had written news stories about deadly protests in Andijan, Uzbekistan in 2005. The Organization for Security and Co operation in Europe (OSCE), the United States government, and Human Rights Watch criticized the sentence. On May 8, she confessed in court and she was given a suspended sentence and released.