Friday, April 12, 2013

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) is stopping its visits to penitentiaries in Uzbekistan.

The Director-General of the ICRC Directorate Yves Daccord ‏wrote on his Twitter account on April 12 that his organization is terminating all visits to Uzbek prisons.

According to Daccord, “our visits must have meaningful humanitarian impact and dialogue with authorities must be constructive,” but “it is not the case in Uzbekistan.”

Daccord added that the decision to stop visiting detainees in Uzbekistan was not easy.

The ICRC started visiting Uzbekistani detainees after signing an agreement with Tashkent in 2001 that allowed its delegates to visit all the places of detention in the country but prison officials and other Uzbek authorities have raised obstacles to such visits several times since then.