Human Rights Watch Report on Central Asia: Impairments in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan Shocking
The international human rights organization Human Rights Watch 31 January published a report "Central Asia: Mass violations of human rights, repression", in which it states that governments of the region should stop suppressing freedom of speech and harassment of critics of the authorities, a REGNUM correspondent informs.The level of violations and the general deterioration of the situation with major freedoms in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan in 2012 were shocking, the report says. Despite this, the European Union and the United States largely avoided publicly expressing concern about the blatant human rights situation in all Central Asian states at a time when victims of repression needed their voice in defense of rights and freedoms.
In 2012, the authorities of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan have intensified the persecution of ardent critics of the government, while in none of the five Central Asian states have serious measures been taken to resolve long-standing human rights issues, such as widespread impunity for torture, the World Human Rights Watch report.
In Kazakhstan, a severe and unprecedented suppression of freedom of speech and political pluralism was launched, accompanied by the imprisonment of prominent opposition figures and civic activists and the closure of the opposition group and key independent media. Repressions against civil society intensified in Uzbekistan. The authorities of this country placed human rights defenders under house arrest and detained them for isolated civilian activism, extended prison sentences to the opposition without respecting procedural guarantees, and deported international journalists who tried to visit the country. Tashkent ignores long-standing requests from UN 11 human rights experts to visit Uzbekistan.
Turkmenistan remains one of the most repressive and closed states of the world. In Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, insignificant, positive steps were taken to improve the human rights situation. But in general, the deplorable human rights situation in these countries has not improved, despite, for example, government promises to address the issue of torture - widely used in both countries - during visits to each of them by the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture.
“The level of violations and the general deterioration of the situation with basic freedoms in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan in 2012 are shocking,” said Hugh Williamson, Europe and Central Asia director of Human Rights Watch. “Despite this, the European Union and the United States avoided public expression of concern more a blatant human rights situation in all Central Asian states at the very time when victims of repression needed their voice in defense of rights and freedoms. "
A Human Rights Watch report assesses human rights progress over the past year in more than 90 countries, including an analysis of the situation after the Arab Spring. The willingness of new governments to respect rights and freedoms will be the factor that will determine whether the Arab Spring will lead to the emergence of genuine democracy or simply degenerate into new versions of authoritarianism, Human Rights Watch said.
Repressions in Kazakhstan followed the events of December 2011 of the year in Zhanaozen, when police and government forces opened fire on oil workers and others, killing 12 people (according to official data, during the suppression of unrest, REGNUM died). During 16, authorities harassed oil activists, oppositionists, civil society activists, and journalists covering the strikes in Mangistau Oblast that preceded the December events. Dozens of people were convicted of their alleged role in strikes and violence, including the leader of the unregistered party "Alga!" Vladimir Kozlov, who was sentenced to seven and a half years in prison in October.
In December, the Almaty courts neutralized critical votes by banning the Alga! Party in Kazakhstan. and key independent media outlets that were declared “extremist” in short-term lawsuits. The human rights situation in Kazakhstan in 2012 was also overshadowed by plausible and serious allegations of torture and death in December of 2011 by an 50-year-old man after he was severely beaten by law enforcement officers while in detention.
Kyrgyzstan is still struggling with the effects of inter-ethnic clashes in the south of the country in June 2010, as a result of which hundreds of people died and thousands were injured. Contrary to relative calm in southern Kyrgyzstan, ethnic Uzbeks are still being detained, tortured and extorted in the absence of legal protection, despite the adoption of a national preventive mechanism against torture in Kyrgyzstan in 2012. Human rights activist Azimjon Askarov is serving a life sentence, despite the fact that the prosecution was accompanied by torture and serious violations of fair trial standards.
Authorities restricted the right to free expression, blocking access to Ferghana.ru, an independent information site on Central Asia, and banning the screening of a documentary film about Muslim gays. Gender-based violence remains a serious and widespread problem.
The repressive law on religion continued to be applied in Tajikistan and legislation was introduced to restrict religious education. Authorities restricted media freedom by blocking access to independent media sites and social networks such as Asia Plus, Facebook, and YouTube. Torture and ill-treatment of detainees, as well as domestic violence against women, remained widespread, even after a Tajik court sentenced a police officer to seven years in prison for torture in September.
In July, dozens of dead and many injured were reported in Khorog, the administrative center of the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Oblast in the south-east of the country, after the government sent troops there to arrest those responsible for the killing of the head of local security. At the end of July, according to official data, 17 government soldiers, 30 militants and 20 civilians were killed as a result of the violence, but independent sources reported that there were more casualties among the population. Turkmenistan did not take any meaningful steps to improve the chronically blatant human rights situation despite the devastating conclusion of a key UN expert body, the Human Rights Committee in March, which considered Turkmenistan’s observance of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and made detailed recommendations on the problems identified.
The government forcibly sends dissidents to psychiatric institutions and persecutes people who have fallen into disfavor with the authorities. Known political prisoners are serving long sentences on trumped up charges, while the country remains closed to any independent human rights monitoring. Independent civil society activists and journalists cannot work freely, human rights defenders are constantly at risk of repression from the government.
In Uzbekistan, despite the “liberalization” of courts and prisons repeatedly declared by the authoritarian President Islam Karimov, torture remains an endemic phenomenon in the criminal justice system of a country that does not have an independent judiciary. For example, in July, police in the west of the country detained the Jehovah's Gulchehr Abdullayev on suspicion of possessing "forbidden" literature. Abdullayeva complained that at four o'clock in the heat the police put her face to the wall without food or water. After that, they put a gas mask on her head and blocked the access of air.
The government sponsors forced labor of adults and children to pick cotton; For the fourth year in a row, it refused to comply with the request of the International Labor Organization to send independent observers to monitor the harvest.
The United States, the European Union and its individual member countries in their relations with the Central Asian states in 2012, focused primarily on economics, energy and security issues in the context of Afghanistan, Human Rights Watch said.
“Too often in Washington, Brussels and European capitals they solved their own problems, instead of linking development with improving human rights in Central Asia,” says Hugh Williamson. “Silence against persistent human rights violations in the long run only increases risks for stability and security to which government policies systematically ignore the rule of law. "
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