Head of Kashkadarya region branch of Human Rights Society of Uzbekistan Gulshan Karayeva |
In the early morning of 20 May, the head of the Human Rights Society of Uzbekistan (HRSU), Gulshan Karayeva, was awakened by her neighbours.
“Look at your gate,” they were shouting.
Karayeva said that her house’s gate and walls, as well as that of her close neighbours, were covered with obscene words and indecent pictures.
Unknown people wrote her name, Gulshan, on the wall many times for the human rights activist to make sure that the insulting messages were addressed to her.
A day earlier, on 19 May, Karayeva was beaten up by two women unknown to her. They caught the rights activist when she left her house to buy medicines for her disabled son.
The women attacked her near school 10 and the regional court in Karshi, beating and accusing her of going out on dates with their husbands.
Karayeva
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“Yesterday we spent the whole day to plaster and paint over the graffiti on our gate. I think of all this calmly as I know what human rights activity costs in this country,” Karayeva said.
Karayeva links the recent events with her refusal to accept an offer that the Kashkadarya region’s SNB made on 5 May.
The chairman of the local SNB telephoned her and offered cooperation but Karayeva refused to accept it and published a report entitled “How much does information cost?” about the SNB’s attempt to recruit her.
HRSU President Abdujalil Boymatov, who lives in exile in Ireland, has said that the Uzbek authorities want to stop the outflow of information from the county.
“The authorities are hunting on the last people who can speak out from inside about what is happening in Uzbekistan and how people live,” Boymatov said.
The authorities were especially irritated by Karayeva’s reports about the shortage of gas and electricity in Kashkadarya, which grows during the winter.
Boymatov said that it not been for the first time that an action was staged against Karayeva on 19-20 May. The human rights activist had already came under several attacks and beatings and, last summer, unknown people poisoned her dog.
Uznews.net
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