Posted 2012/1/31
Uzbekistan: Ongoing detention of human rights defender Mr Akzam Turgunov declared ‘arbitrary’ by UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention
In an opinion recently made available, the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD) confirms that the ongoing detention of human rights defender Mr Akzam Turgunov is arbitrary, and calls for his immediate release.
Akzam Turgunov is the executive director and founder of “Mazlum” human rights centre, a human rights organisation in Tashkent that advocates on behalf of prisoners of conscience and protests against the use of torture.
He also served as Director of the Tashkent section of Erk (“Freedom”), a political opposition party. In July 2008, he was investigating police corruption charges and working as a lay public defender on behalf of a woman in a divorce settlement dispute in the town on Manget when he was arrested on extortion charges.
He was held without access to a lawyer, and boiling water was poured over his back and neck during his interrogation. Following an unfair trial in which the plaintiff was not questioned, he was sentenced to ten years in prison. Akzam Turgunov is currently being detained at a prison camp and is forced to work in a brick making factory.
Front Line Defenders welcomes the opinion of the WGAD, adopted on 17 November 2011, which states that the charges against Akzam Turgunov were a fabricated means to punish him for exercising his rights to freedom of opinion, expression, association, and political participation. The WGAD holds that “the Government used an involvement of Mr Turgunov in the resolution of a settlement in civil matters to prosecute and punish him for his human rights and political activities.”
The WGAD also notes that authorities failed to adequately investigate the mistreatment of the human rights defender and calls on the government to “release Mr Turgunov and accord him an enforceable right to compensation.” The full text of the WGAD’s opinion is available on Freedom Now website
Front Line Defenders has previously called on the authorities in Uzbekistan to immediately and unconditionally release Akzam Turgunov and other human rights defenders who are being detained as a result of their human rights work in Uzbekistan – see h Original appeal by Front Line Defenders
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.