…jailed human rights activist Agzam Farmonov…

Uznews.net – The administration of the Jaslyk prison has denied jailed human rights activist Agzam Farmonov a meeting with his wife as soon as an International Committee of the Red Cross car appeared at the prison gate.

Ozoda Yakubova, Farmonov’s wife, said that her latest meeting with her husband had been interrupted without reason by the prison administration.

The wife and her mother-in-law went to Jaslyk on 18 January for a two-day meeting with Farmonov. The prison governor, Kurolboy Berdiyev, told her that he favoured Farmonov because he did not break the rules and behaved well.

After the first day, their meeting was interrupted by Berdiyev, who explained it by the need to take Farmonov somewhere, and promised a longer meeting next time.

When the women were leaving the prison they saw two cars of the International Committee of the Red Cross. “I then thought that they [inmates] were being either hidden or taken to meet ICRC inspectors, and when Berdiyev left the meeting room I heard him say that ‘Farmonov is ready and take him out’,” Yakubova recalled.

Agzam Farmonov, 31, the head of the Human Rights Society of Uzbekistan’s branch in Syrdarya Region, was sentenced to nine years in 2006 – for his human rights activities and his relation, through his wife Ozoda, to human rights activist Talib Yakubov, who is living in exile in France.

Apart from Farmonov, another activist Alisher Karamatov, 41, was also sentenced to nine years in prison and he is serving his sentence in a prison in Karshi.

His wife Namuna Karamatova also said that her latest three-day meeting with him was also interrupted for no serious reason on 23 December 2009.

Abdujalil Boymatov, the president of the society who is living in Ireland, said that prison guards often create difficulties for visitors to extort bribes because when they come from far they could not just leave and start offering money to them.

However, visitors of political prisoners do not pay any money, which is why their meetings are interrupted in order to please authorities in Tashkent, Boymatov suggested.

Another reason is to hide inmates who may tell ICRC commissions the truth about their conditions.

When in 2003 a group of Tashkent-based journalists visited Jaslyk, one of them said, they were told by inmates that several prisoners were being hidden from them because they witnessed the deaths of two prisoners who had been boiled to death in summer 2002.

Ozoda Yakubova said that Agzam Farmonov was not facing torture now because she had not seen any traces of violence on his body.

Farmonov faced torture when he started serving the sentence at Jaslyk, especially in 2007. He was held in solitary confinement and beaten up, which is why he has things to tell the ICRC.