… child labour be stopped in Uzbekistan.

Uznews.net – Tashkent-based human rights activists and a group of women from Jizak Region’s Gallaorol District attempted to take a picket outside the regional prosecutor’s office in Jizak yesterday, but they were dispersed by police and national security (SNB) officers.

The women submitted their application to the mayor of Jizak, Ahror Kobilov, on 25 September to request permission to hold a protest action against police abuses, illegal dismissals, the seizures of homes and unlawful court decisions.

Activists of the Human Rights Alliance of Uzbekistan joined the women to demand that forced child labour be stopped in Uzbekistan and journalist Jamshid Karimov be released from a mental hospital in Samarkand where he has been receiving forced treatment. They also demanded all officials in Jizak Region be made answerable for violating Uzbek laws and human rights.

Jizak-based human rights activist Gavhar Berdiyeva said that 14 and 15-year-old pupils were not attending schools but picking cotton everyday from morning to evening. Well-known activist from Jizak Bahtiyor Hamrayev’s three children are also in cotton fields.

“Many children have been taken to remote districts and are living in unacceptable conditions: they sleep on the floor in unheated premises and are underfed,” Berdiyeva said.

Despite all this, the Jizak authorities did not give permission to hold a protest action, but when several rights activists and women abused by bureaucrats unwrapped their placards, the alliance’s activist Yelena Urlayeva said, police officers rounded them up. The women were forced to go homes, while human rights activists were sent to Tashkent in a private car driving to the city.

Activists from the Jizak branch of the Human Rights Society of Uzbekistan did not intend to take part in the picket, but they were still placed under house arrest between from morning to afternoon, while Bahtiyor Hamrayev was detained and taken to police station No 2, where had been held for three hours.

“All these police actions are quite predictable because the women did not receive permission to hold a picket,” Hamrayev said. “I warned them that they might face fines or 15 days in jail but they did not listen to me. It is good they got away with it.”