U.N. Envoy Says Torture 'Systemic' in Uzbekistan

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U.N. Envoy Says Torture 'Systemic' in Uzbekistan

Fri Dec 6, 9:18 AM ET Add World - Reuters to My Yahoo!
By Shamil Baigin

TASHKENT (Reuters) - A United Nations (news - web sites)' rapporteur accused Uzbekistan on Friday of routinely using torture to terrorize opponents and obtain confessions which sometimes resulted in courts handing down the death penalty.

Uzbekistan is home to a U.S. airbase used in the military campaign in neighboring Afghanistan (news - web sites), and is a key U.S. ally in the "war on terrorism."

"Torture as far as I can see, it is my impression, is not just incidental but...is systemic in this country," U.N. human rights rapporteur on torture Theo van Boven told a news briefing.

During his two-week fact-finding mission to the secretive Central Asian state, Van Boven interviewed dozens of torture victims, members of their families and other relatives.

He said the forms of torture used by Uzbek police and secret services included beatings, electric shocks, immersion of the victim's head in water and suffocation with plastic bags.

Van Boven said he had found that families and relatives of those arrested were often threatened with torture and rape.

"I am concerned...about many confessions obtained through torture and other illegal means which are then used as evidence in trials that are leading to death penalties or very severe punishment," he said.

There was no immediate reaction from the government of President Islam Karimov, who brooks no dissent in the poor nation of 25 million that he has run since Soviet times.

Van Bowen said he had met senior Uzbek officials but was barred from a secret police jail in Tashkent. He was also unhappy with his visit to the dreaded Dzhazlyk prison in western Uzbekistan, where political prisoners are said to be held.

"I could not carry out the visit to Dzhazlyk in a satisfactory and comprehensive manner," he said. The visit lasted two hours instead of the planned six, and his interview with the head of the prison "was interrupted."

Washington invited Karimov on a state visit this year and a stream of top-level U.S. and European Union (news - web sites) visitors have been to Tashkent since the September 11 attacks on the United States.

Karimov has watched the chronic instability in Afghanistan with unease and fears militant Islam will spill over the border.

While expressing some understanding of these concerns, the West and human rights bodies criticize him for what they call a disproportionate clampdown on dissent under the pretext of fighting religious extremism.

Van Boven said his report would be presented to the U.N. General Assembly in January and released to the public in March.

UN Assails Uzbekistan’s Use of Torture

--by Faruk Turaev
Source: http://www.tol.cz

TASHKENT, Uzbekistan--Uzbekistan’s human rights record is again coming under fire, this time because of what the UN special rapporteur on torture calls Uzbekistan’s “systematic” use of torture in law enforcement and judicial processes.

At a 6 December press conference given on the last day of a two-week visit to Uzbekistan, Rapporteur Theo Van Boven said that the UN is “concerned about many confessions obtained through torture, which has been used systematically by the Uzbek law enforcement and then used as evidence in trials.”

Torture should not be permitted in any situation, at any time, even during wartime, Van Boven said, calling the number people killed by torture in Uzbekistan “considerable.”

The UN envoy and his assistants met with approximately 50 to 60 torture victims and their relatives during their stay, visiting prisons in the Andijan and Ferghana regions--including the notorious Jaslyk penal colony--and the main mental health institution in Tashkent. Prisons in the Navoi and Karshi regions went unvisited because of time constraints and adverse weather conditions.

The bad weather also hampered the Jaslyk visit--instead of staying the planned six hours, the team had to depart after just two hours because of inclement conditions.

Moreover, Van Boven’s team was denied access to the National Security Service’s main detention facility, located in Tashkent, which has been cited as an alleged place of torture.

Just days into the UN visit, an Uzbek prisoner was sentenced to death by a Tashkent court on charges of terrorism, murder, and propagating religious extremism. According to the New York-based Human Rights Watch, Iskandar Khudoiberganov’s family says he confessed to the charges only after having been subjected to beatings and electric shocks.

The presiding judge said at the trial on 28 November that his verdict had been based exclusively on Khudoiberganov’s written testimony and confessions.

Two witnesses who had given statements against Khudoiberganov retracted their testimony in court, saying they had given it under duress. Khudoiberganov's five co-defendants received prison terms ranging from six to 16 years.

“The judgment of the court should be voided because it was based on confessions and other testimony that were coerced under torture,” said Rachel Denber, deputy director of Human Rights Watch’s Europe and Central Asia Division.

“The presiding judge of the court ignored torture claims instead of launching an inquiry into them,” she added. “The decision follows a pattern well established in Uzbekistan, whereby courts sentence individuals to lengthy prison sentences on the basis of coerced testimony.”

According to HRW, Uzbekistan’s human rights record has not improved since the organization’s annual meeting held in Bucharest in May. In the past year alone, the authorities have arrested at least seven human rights defenders, and one was involuntarily committed to a psychiatric hospital. Since the end of 1997, the government has conducted a campaign against religious extremism that HRW says has seen the arrest and torture of thousands.

From January through November 2002, HRW documented 167 cases of people convicted or arrested on charges of religious extremism. The true number could be far higher.

Khudoiberganov’s case is the latest, but there are many human rights violations that are left without attention. The UN envoy stated that he has collected much information by meeting and talking with the torture victims and their family members and relatives. He said that torture is not incidental in this country, but has been practiced continuously.

Despite his sharp criticism of the Uzbek authorities, Van Boven did not offer much new information to the mass media. He indicated that the evidence acquired during the visit will be examined to prepare a public report for the UN Human Rights Commission for discussion next year. The document will be finalized in January 2003 and will available on the Internet in March.

He said that the forthcoming document will affect Uzbekistan’s prospects for humanitarian and other kinds of aid provided by the UN and its member countries. He also said that follow-up monitoring should be implemented in Uzbekistan in an attempt to stop torture.

This was the first visit of a UN anti-torture delegation to the country since Uzbekistan joined the International Convention Against Torture in 1995. Appeals to the UN Human Rights Commission to send an investigative mission were made in 1999 and 2001, but the visit was not confirmed until UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan visited Uzbekistan on 18 October.

Uzbekistan’s human rights record has come under increased scrutiny since it started cooperating with the United States in the “war against terror.” U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell in August told the U.S. Congress that Uzbekistan was making “substantial and continuing progress” in human rights and democracy, according to Human Rights Watch. Powell’s statement contributed to the congressional decision to release additional monetary aid to Uzbekistan.

In the wake of the rapporteur’s visit and the sentencing of Khudoiberganov, Human Rights Watch took the United States to task as well.

“While the United States is claiming Uzbekistan’s human rights record is improving, the Uzbeks are condemning a man to death on the basis of confessions extracted under torture,” Elizabeth Andersen, executive director of Human Rights Watch’s Europe and Central Asia Division, said in a 4 December article on the HRW website.

“The failure to investigate these torture claims, even while the UN special rapporteur on torture is in the country, shows that the authorities remain indifferent,” Andersen charged.

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For more stories on Uzbekistan, visit the Uzbekistan country file at http://uzbekistan.tol.cz.