Abuse of Journalists
Human Rights Watch

A series of arrests last month is the most recent indication of the government's continued intolerance of criticism. On February 17, police arrested Ergash Bobojanov, a member of the opposition movement "Birlik" (Unity), at his home in the Fergana Valley, beat him and charged him with criminal defamation for newspaper articles critical of the government and raising issues of local government corruption, published in 1999 and 2001 respectively. He was later released under a presidential amnesty, but we still consider him at risk. On February 22, police in Tashkent detained Oleg Sarapulov, an assistant to an independent journalist who publishes his material on the Internet, and held him for two days without access to a lawyer or family and friends, questioning him about two articles critical of the Uzbek government in his possession and accused him of distributing them to others.

Reporters Without Borders Uzbekistan 7 March 2003

Radio Free Europe and Voice of America correspondents physically attacked in Tashkent

Reporters Without Borders voiced its outrage at the beatings inflicted today on Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty stringer Khusnudtin Kutbetdinov and Voice of America stringer Yussuf Rassulov in Tashkent by some 15 thugs. The attack came when they were covering the forced dispersion of women who had been protesting against the arrest of their relatives on charges of being Islamist militants. As well as attacking the reporters directly, the thugs encouraged passers-by to follow suit.

"The right to inform and be informed is the basis of press freedom, especially on matters affecting human rights such as the forced dispersion of peaceful demonstrators," Reporters Without Borders secretary-general said in a letter to interior minister Zokirjon Almatov. "It is unacceptable that journalists who were just doing their job were subjected to such violence in the presence of many onlookers and without the police intervening," Ménard added, calling for an investigation to identify and punish those responsible.

According to a report carried by the Uzbek-language service of Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, police were present during the attack but did not intervene. One of the assailants said he was acting on orders from the interior ministry. A spokesperson for the interior ministry denied that it was involved in the incident.

EurasiaNet UZBEKISTAN: RIGHTS GROUPS SAY PRESS CRACKDOWN UNDER WAY
Bruce Pannier: 3/09/03 A EurasiaNet Partner Post from

Rights groups say they see evidence of a renewed crackdown on independent media in Uzbekistan.

Since February, three journalists have been arrested, another jailed, one newspaper shut down and another suspended indefinitely.

Caroline Giraud, a researcher at the media watchdog Reporters Without Borders, said her organization has seen a change for the worse in Uzbekistan recently and cites a case involving reporter Gairat Mekhliboev.

"We have noticed lately a crackdown on independent press," she said. "The case of Gairat Mekhliboev is the most upsetting because he was condemned to seven years jail."

An Uzbek court last month found Mekhliboev -- a journalist who writes on religious topics -- guilty of belonging to Hezb-ut Tahrir, a religious group banned by the Uzbek government.

The New York-based nongovernmental group Human Rights Watch released a statement questioning whether it was Mekhliboev's association with Hezb-ut Tahrir or his articles about religion that led him to prison. Elizabeth Andersen of HRW said: "Prosecuting Mekhliboev may have been a way for the government to send a signal to today's journalists not to overstep any boundaries."

Giraud says her organization agrees with the HRW assessment. "We have a lot of evidence to think that [Mekhliboev] was condemned for his work as a journalist," she says, noting that one of his articles mentioned at the trial was about religion.

Hezb-ut Tahrir advocates the creation of an Islamic Caliphate, or state, but says it does not call for violence to obtain that goal. The group admits Mekhliboev is a member.

Another case causing concern involves 61-year-old Ergash Bobojonov, arrested in February. Bobojonov is a member of "Birlik," an opposition party not registered but tolerated in Uzbekistan. He's also a journalist and has published articles about corruption in the Uzbek government in Kyrgyzstan.

A human rights activist in the Ferghana Valley, Abdusalom Ergashev, acting without a warrant, arrested Bobojonov on libel charges, according to police. He was released last week but the charges against him -- which include embezzlement and making death threats -- have not been dropped.

Bobojonov described his experience in detention for RFE/RL. "I am such a weak person, I weigh only 46 kilograms," he said. "They twisted my arm behind my back, beat me about the head, ripped my clothes and then dragged me naked in front of my family. This is how they humiliated me."

Police also recently arrested Tokhtomurad Toshev, the chief editor of the newspaper "Adolat." The charges against Toshev are hooliganism and embezzlement, but colleagues at the paper say it was Toshev's articles criticizing the Interior Ministry that are the reason for Toshev's arrest. "Adolat" has been suspended.

In another incident, on 22 February, police detained Oleg Sarapulov, an assistant to an independent journalist who publishes material on the Internet.

According to HRW, police held Sarapulov for two days without access to a lawyer. Sarapulov said the police were interested in a series of articles written since the start of the year and appearing on several websites.

The articles of "Khaknazarov and Co." detail alleged corruption and the power struggles that go on behind the scenes in Uzbekistan.

Bobomurat Abdullaev, the chairman of the Kazakh nongovernmental organization Ozod Ovoz (Free Voice), said simply possessing any of the articles is reason for arrest.

"Naturally, it you are found with these articles it opens the way to arrest, because all the articles are calling on people to act against the regime. According to Uzbekistan's laws on information security, this is illegal."

The Uzbek government has not commented on the arrests, but the closures follow a pattern started since independence in 1991.

Aaron Rhodes is the executive director of the Vienna-based International Helsinki Federation. His organization monitors the media situation in countries like Uzbekistan. He said his organization has noticed a worsening situation in Uzbekistan.

"Although state censorship has officially been abolished, the government retains a tight grip on the media. Everything that is published is closely monitored and media outlets and journalists who are critical of the government face repressive measures. In the first months of 2003, the number of arrests of independent journalists suggest a new wave of repression."

This week brought more closures. The newspaper "Milli Talim" (National Education) was closed down for alleged "grammatical errors" -- somewhat surprising for a newspaper connected with the Ministry of Education.

(Zamira Eshanova of the Uzbek Service contributed to this report.)

Regional Analysis

An independent journalist, Oleg Sarapulov, was briefly detained simply for possessing articles about the Uzbek government that appeared on the Internet. The author, or a group of authors, under the name of Usman Khaqnazarov, have for the last three months published a number of articles on the website Centrasia. These publications reveal alleged nepotism, corruption, involvement in drug trafficking, and even contacts with organized crime among high-ranking Uzbek officials.

In early March, the U.S. government expressed its concern regarding the wave of harassment of Uzbek journalists. U.S. State Department Spokesman Richard Boucher said, "harassment of journalists is a serious violation of basic democratic principles." He also said that the "the government of Uzbekistan has made a commitment to intensify the democratic transformation of Uzbekistan, including independence of the media." Boucher stressed that the U.S. government expects the Uzbek government to keep this commitment.

Just several days after Boucher's statement, a new case of harassment took place. This time the targets were correspondents from international media outlets. On 7 March, two correspondents from U.S. radio stations were beaten. That day, RFE/RL Uzbek Service correspondent Khusnitdin Qutbiddinov and his colleague, VOA Uzbek Service correspondent Yusuf Rasulov, went to the Chorsu market in Tashkent to cover a protest meeting of a group of Muslim women.

For the first time, women protesters demanded not only an end to torture in prisons and better conditions for their male relatives who have been imprisoned on religious charges, but also the resignation of President Karimov and his government. By the time the two correspondents arrived at the crowded market, police had already forcibly dispersed the meeting by loading women onto buses. But the correspondents spoke to and recorded interviews with several Muslim women who managed to escape police detention. As the RFE/RL and VOA correspondents left the market a group of some 20 men and women surrounded them and began beating them. Once the group managed to take the recording equipment from the correspondents, everyone left. According to VOA correspondent Rasulov, he managed to catch up with one man from the group who said that this was done under instructions from the Anticorruption Department of the Interior Ministry. But the head of the press office of the Interior Ministry denied any police involvement in the incident. So far neither the Ministry of Foreign Affairs nor the Interior Ministry, which were both informed about the incident on the same day, have given any explanation of the incident. RFE/RL President Tom Dine condemned the attack and said that "it flies in the face of the Uzbek government's commitments to the U.S. to foster political and civil reform."