IFEX – News from the international freedom of expression community
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ALERT – UZBEKISTAN
28 August 2009
New abuse of jailed dissident
SOURCE: Human Rights Watch
Family visits threatened after relatives publicize mistreatment
(Human Rights Watch/IFEX) – (New York, August 27, 2009) – Uzbek authorities
should promptly investigate new allegations of abuse against a political
prisoner, Yusuf Jumaev, and ensure that his family is permitted regular
visits, Human Rights Watch said today.
Jumaev’s daughter, Feruza Jumaeva, who saw him on August 17, 2009, told
Human Rights Watch that Jumaev was beaten by a prison guard not long before
her visit. She said that she saw bruises on his body, which he told her
came from being beaten, and that he told her he continues to be subject to
insults and humiliation.
“The abuse of this peaceful poet and dissident needs to stop,” said Holly
Cartner, Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “Jumaev
should never have been imprisoned in the first place, and Uzbek authorities
should free him without delay.”
Jumaeva told Human Rights Watch that her father said the beating was
carried out by Jamshid Atoev, a member of the prison staff who oversees one
of the prisoner brigades. The guard reportedly approached Jumaev as he was
sitting in the exercise yard, and delivered a strong punch to his spine.
Jumaev told his daughter that when he asked why he was being beaten, Atoev
punched him repeatedly in the chest area and the head.
Jumaev is among the many dissidents and human rights activists jailed by
the Uzbek authorities on political grounds. He is a poet and political
dissident who called for President Islam Karimov’s resignation in the
period before the country’s presidential election in December 2007. He has
suffered repeated abuse in prison.
Jumaev is in poor health, his daughter said. He is emaciated, with his
bones sticking out from under his skin, is very weak, and has started to
stoop over.
She also said that prison authorities forced her to wait six days before
permitting her to see her father and threatened to cut off family visits.
Jumaeva said she arrived in Jaslyk, the prison in which her father is being
held, on August 11. She spent six days waiting in the “relatives’ hotel,”
two rooms and a kitchen in a building inside the prison compound where the
families of prisoners are permitted to stay during extended visits. Jumaeva
described the rooms as very dirty, with beds infested with fleas and lice.
At around 3 p.m. on August 17, prison guards finally permitted her to meet
with her father.
The following morning, Jumaeva was summoned by the head of Jaslyk prison,
Qurolboi Berdiev, to his office. The prison guards who came to collect her
told her that her visit with her father was over and that she should take
her things with her. She said that Berdiev accused her of making up stories
about Jumaev’s ill-treatment and telling them to Uzbekistan’s “enemies,”
adding that he could see to it that she never gains access to the prison
again.
Jumaeva and other members of the Jumaev family have reported previous abuse
of Jumaev in Jaslyk prison to Human Rights Watch as well as to media
outlets such as Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s Uzbek service,
ozodlik.org, and Uznews.net.
“Uzbek authorities should be investigating the serious allegations of abuse
at Jaslyk, not threatening to cut off visits by those who report them,”
said Cartner.
This incident is the latest in a catalogue of abuse against Jumaev in the
prison. Family members interviewed by Human Rights Watch over the last year
said that prison guards have harassed, insulted, and beaten Jumaev
regularly since he was transferred there in July 2008. The “severe regime”
prison is notorious for its harsh conditions, and the United Nations
Special Rapporteur on torture has called for it to be closed down.
Jumaev was originally sentenced to five years in a penal colony (kolonia
poseleniye) – effectively a minimum-security prison – by Bukhara Regional
Court on April 15, 2008 on charges that included ‘insult” and “resisting
arrest.”
The Uzbek government should immediately and unconditionally free all
wrongfully imprisoned human rights defenders, journalists, political
opposition members, and other activists held on politically motivated
charges, Human Rights Watch said.
http://www.ifex.org/uzbekistan/2009/08/28/juma_ill_treatment/
For more information:
Human Rights Watch
350 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10118
USA
hrwnyc (@) hrw.org
Phone: +1 212 290 4700
Fax: +1 212 736 1300
http://www.hrw.org
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