Human rights campaigners in Tashkent subject to renewed attacks.

	Abdullo Tojiboy-ugli

Human rights activists Tatyana Dovlatova and Abdullo Tojiboy-ugli have both been threatened by a group of women in separate incidents that took place on the same day.

At around 2pm on Wednesday, 10 August, Dovlatova says an aggressive crowd of three men and around a dozen women appeared at her home. The men stood to one side and the women announced themselves as relatives of Tojiboy-ugli and demanded that Dovlatova went with them for a showdown.

“It seemed to me that the women did not recognised me. They said ‘Dovlatova’s not at home’”, said the campaigner, “but they still forced their way through my gate. That’s why it seemed like a carefully planned event.”

Dovlatova’s daughter says the women shouted at her mother, threatening to burn the house down. They left after about 40 minutes, picking up a hammer that was lying near the gate as they went.

Dovlatova tried to call the police but they didn’t respond to her phone call. That evening, about eight hours after the incident, law enforcement officers did come out to her home but were too late to take action.

Tojiboy-ugli faced a similar crowd

	Tatyana Dovlatova

on the same day.

“Near my house as I approached I saw a few cars, about half a dozen men and a few women, including my ex-wife Mukhtabar Mirsagatov and her friend. They started insulting me and saying that me and Dovlatova had ruined our family,” Tojiboy-ugli recounts. He says that he has known Dovlatova for five years and hasn’t lived with his wife for 22 years, so the claims are more than ridiculous.

He is certain that on that day an attempt on his life was being planned so rather than challenge the group he went straight to the police.

“I recognised the men who were there with my ex-wife; they work for the police and other law-enforcement agencies that are ‘guarding’ me,” Tojiboy-ugli continued. It’s shameful that when they want to put pressure on people who oppose them, they have started drafting their relatives in to do it.”

According to Tojiboy-ugli, earlier this year the authorities also used his son against him when, on13 May, the anniversary of the Andijan killings, he started a row at their house. As a result Tojiboi ugli, instead of laying flowers at the monument to courage as he planned to do, was led to the local interior ministry office by a police officer.

Abdullo Tojiboy-ugli is known for a serious of protests in Tashkent calling for President Islam Karimov to resign.

Tatyana Dovlatova, after her interview with the Rossiya 1 TV channel was broadcast on 24 April this year, has been under pressure from the Uzbek authorities. A civil court ordered her to pay a fine of 10 million sums, a criminal court fined her for affray, she has also lost her disabled status, her pension and state benefits which she had previously claimed.

 

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