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Juma and his wife Gulnora Oltiyeva stage a picket in 2007 |
Juma was released from prison on 19 May and was reunited with his family who are leaving in Louisville, Kentucky on 20 May.
The writer told Uznews.net that when he was moved from the notorious Jaslyk prison in Karakalpakstan to Nukus after US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s visit to Uzbekistan on 2 December, he thought this could be a sign of his impending early release from jail.
He said that his expectations were confirmed when he was told about his early release on 19 May and was taken to Tashkent International Airport, where a US embassy official handed him all the necessary documents to depart for the USA.
However, he said, as a condition for his release and departure for the USA he was forced to give up his Uzbek citizenship.
“A US diplomat gave my documents to a border guard, who made necessary stamps, and I was able fly,” he said. Instead of his Uzbek passport which was seized from him when he was detained in 2007, Juma said, he was given a travel document which was valid between 7 and 21 May.
Documents, which were also valid only for two weeks, were issued to his daughter Feruza and her four-year-old son, he said. “Even my daughter and grandchild were stripped of their Uzbek citizenship.”
Juma also said that right up to his release he continued to be ill-treated in prison.
“Harassment which ended in beatings started at breakfast time and this happened every day,” he said. “The last insult and hit on my head I received on the last day I spent there [in prison].”
Even though the freed dissident’s voice was steady over the phone, his wife Gulnora Oltiyeva said his health was in a poor condition.
“He has lost weight and aged,” she said. Oltiyeva suggested that Juma would need a health check-up and receive some medical treatment in order to recover from his experience in Uzbekistan’s harshest prison.
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