Uzbekistan Attempts To Clean Up Human Rights Image

Pratap Chatterjee

Flipping open the booklet, which is titled "Human Rights and Democracy in Uzbekistan," casual readers might think Ardzinov must have signed a misprint because the white pages inside are completely blank. But there is no mistake; the book is his testimony to repression and censorship in his country.

Ardzinov is the director of the Independent Human Rights Organization of Uzbekistan (IHROU), which was just granted government authorization on 6 March 2002, two days after the United States government issued a report condemning the Uzbek government as an "authoritarian" state with a "very poor" human rights record.

The government recognition vindicates the work IHROU has done for the last decade out of Ardzinov's flat in the Chilanzar district of the southern part of the capital city of Tashkent, one of very few such organizations in this Central Asian country since independence from the former Soviet Union in 1991.

Mikhail Ardzinov

But this recognition has come at an enormous cost. Gesturing towards the sofa that takes up one side of his small living room, Ardzinov says simply: "That's where they beat me three years ago, after forcing their way in here and confiscating my computer, my files and my fax machine," referring to a crackdown on June 25, 1999, by police officers under the supervision of Tashkent city police investigator Liudmila Vladimirovna Sich.

"They put me on the floor and started kicking me. I was bleeding and after I was beaten strongly, they took me to the city police station and kept me there for 12 hours. There were about 30 men, colonels and deputy colonels who said they were tired of me and that they planned to put me in the basement and kill me. All along, they kept beating me," he added.

A United States embassy medical officer who examined him subsequently confirmed that he had suffered two broken ribs, a cut nose, contusions to his kidneys and a concussion.

Nor was that the only intimidation Arzinov has suffered under the current regime: his front door has been blown up with explosives, he has been kidnapped on his way to meetings with foreign politicians and his passport confiscated to prevent him leaving the country.

Not surprisingly the recognition of IHROU less than a week before Uzbek president Islam Karimov, the former First Secretary of the Communist Party of Uzbekistan who has ruled the country since independence from the former Soviet Union, was scheduled to meet with US president George Bush in Washington DC.

Uzbekistan has gained major support from the US in recent months, such as a tripling of aid levels to $160 million this year, in exchange for playing a crucial role in the war in Afghanistan, allowing approximately 1000 US troops to be stationed at Khanabad air base in central Uzbekistan.

Since the beginning of the year over 30 members of the US Congress have visited Uzbekistan, a ten fold rise over the entire year of 2001 when just three members of Congress visited the country and the year 2000 when not one member of Congress visited the Central Asian republic.

Ardzinov and his colleagues have taken advantage of these visits by foreign dignitaries to demand redress for abuses with some success. In another concession last month, government courts found four police officers guilty of beating Ravshan Haitov to death at the Sobir Rakhimov district police station on October 16, 2001 within hours of being taken into custody.

But the impact of the US attention is mixed, says Vasila Inoyotova, another Uzbek human rights activist. "After the Khanabad airport has been given to Americans, now they have established a curfew and after six at night you cannot walk around," she says, pointing out that dozens of people have been arrested on trumped-up charges.

"Of the 32 arrested, seven are religious activists and fabricated evidence has been planted on them such as bullets and drugs. Others were just curious people who were walking around the base. We managed to speak to the families of the 32 people that have been detained and they said that they had been visited by militia who told them not to give interviews to anybody or their families would be abolished," she says.

Indeed the government has been especially harsh in its crackdown on Muslims, who make up 85 percent of the country's population. Human Rights Watch Europe and Central Asia Division director Elizabeth Anderson says that Karimov "has presided over a ruthless five-year campaign of arrest and torture of Muslims who practice their faith outside state controls, as a result of which at least 7,000 people have been sentenced to lengthy prison terms."

For example Mahbuba Kosymova, a member of IHROU's board, says that when she was imprisoned for 18 months in 1999, the guards banned her from talking to anyone else claiming that she was an Islamic fundamentalist.

"I asked them why I wasn't allowed to speak and the guards; the prisoners call them hammers because they beat us up; told me that I was a Wahabbist (a Saudi Arabian sect) and they gave me a warning. Other prisoners can greet each other and talk but for me, they categorically prohibited me to even look at other jail cells when I walked past or to talk to anyone. They checked up on anyone I talked to and what crimes they were convicted for."

Others argue that the recent concessions by the Uzbek government show that progress is possible. "The vexing question is, how can Western democracy, respect for individual freedoms and civil society come about in Uzbekistan? The approach based on 'export of democracy' or 'punishment for human rights violations' cannot work due to a lack of support in national traditions and a weak, divided democratic opposition," wrote Abdumannob Polat, a director of Central Asian Human Rights Information network, on a website called Eurasia Insight.

Ardzinov says that outside pressure is crucial. "Ever since the anti-terrorist war started, human rights has taken second place. It is a fact. We understand this but simultaneously when we meet state department officials, senators and member of Congress, we openly tell them that human rights should not be forgotten. If the Americans and the West close their eyes and it continues like this the government will completely forget human rights," he says.

Photo Credit:
Uzbekistan, main page - planetware.com