Writer from Bukhara Yusuf Juma.

Uznews.net – Dissident writer from Bukhara Yusuf Juma is continuing to face mistreatment and torture in the high-security Jaslyk prison, which shows that none of the statements about him made by international organisations has been heard in Tashkent.

His daughter Feruza visited him at Jaslyk, in northern Karakalpakstan, earlier this month and found him in a very serious condition, which means prison personnel’s treatment of him has not changed in the past few months and remained inhumane.

Feruza said her father was very ill and his condition was worsening from month to month due to the lack of medical treatment. “He moved with difficulty and his walk was complicated by uncomfortable shoes with metal soles. I do not know why they do not give him soft slippers I have brought him,” she complained.

Before a meeting with his daughter, Juma had spent 11 days in solitary confinement where he was underfed – he was given a piece of bread and water once every other day.

Asked by Feruza the reasons for this, he said: “Solitary confinement? I do not even know.”

The writer told her that his torturers aimed to kill him. One of the guards told him that he would spend 20 years in solitary confinement if he lived this long and would spend even more time if lived longer.

When Feruza tried to find out from the prison administration about reason for placing him in solitary confinement no prison official talked to her.

Yusuf Juma, who exposed the corrupt government of Uzbekistan led by President Islam Karimov, was detained in December 2007 and jailed for five years in spring 2008.

Despite a court ruling on serving his term in an open prison, few months later he was transferred to the Jaslyk prison which has the reputation of a place of no return.

In June 2009 eight European and Uzbek human rights organisations urged the European Union to help to stop torture and violence against the writer. A similar call was also made by Human Rights Watch.

The treatment of the dissident has not changed, Feruza said, adding that the only thing that had changed was his condition and it was hard for him to endure this inhumane treatment.

The writer’s wife Gulnora Oltiyeva thinks that after serving a third of the term her husband was entitled to pardoning announced by the country’s Senate in connection with the 19th anniversary of Uzbekistan’s independence because of his condition. However, he was not pardoned and he has to continue to face violence in prison.