To:
The UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon
OSCE Secretary General Marc Perrin de Brichambaut
UN High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres
Chair of the UN Committee Against Torture Claudio Grossman
OIC Secretary General Ekmeleddin ?hsano?lu
President of Parliamentary Assembly of OSCE Petros Efthymiou
All participants of OSCE Summit in Astana, Kazakhstan
APPEAL
Dear Sir /Madam,
We, the 28 Uzbek refugees, are appealing to you to help us.
14 of us are kept in the Almaty City Police jail, the other 14 are kept in DNSC (the Deparment of National Security Committee) jail. We have been detained for more than 6 months under extradition arrest.
All of us were registered in UNHCR in Kazakhstan from 2005 through 2010. 17 of us had refugee status from UNHCR.
After the new “Law relating to Refugee Status” was passed in the Kazakh Parliament, our cases were transferred to the Department of Immigration Committee of Almaty City. We were informed about this by UNHCR officers and were told it was normal, standard procedure. All of us were registered in the Department of Immigration Committee and obtained asylum seeker certificates.
But soon after our application, more precisely, on June 9, 2010, the police and DNSC officers visited the apartments, where the refugees were officially registered. Under the pretence of checking our documents, took all the refugees to the Migration Police Department. By the evening, some of the detained refugees were released. But, the refugees who were declared wanted by Uzbek government were locked in Almaty jail. UNHCR Almaty office, Almaty Police Department, the Department of Immigration Committee, Migration Police knew that they were declared fugitive. So, it wasn’t news for them. Courts of several Almaty districts issued extradition arrests for the refugees and they were locked in SI-1 jail of Almaty and DNSC.
After two months, in the absence of lawyers and in total isolation, we were interviewed by Committee for refugee status determination. As a result, all of us were rejected, except one refugee. We found out about the result only a few weeks later, from the letter of General Prosecutor’s office. It was stated in the letter that General Prosecutor’s office decided to extradite all refugees for trial and prosecution. After ten days, Mrs. Altynbekova, a director of the Department of Immigration, visited us. She explained us the reason for rejection, pointing that the committee didn’t find the arguments of refugees convincing. She also said, UNHCR cancelled the refugee status of all 17 refugees who had status before. She explained that the reason for cancellation was the crime against UN principles. She said, “As UNHCR rejected you, we have all the more reason to reject you”. She also warned that we could no more call ourselves as “mandate refugees”. We were shocked after hearing this and felt betrayed.
We still can’t understand what crime we have committed that was against UN principles. Why not a single UNHCR officer dared to visit us and explain the reason of status cancellation? Didn’t we apply to them risking our lives and freedom? We thought UNHCR was truly international, independent, unbiased, and unpolitical organization. We legalized ourselves, fully trusted this organization, told everything openly. Most refugees were registered in UNHCR long before they were wanted as fugitives in 2010. Why UNHCR gave us hope that we were under international protection? When Uzbek government wanted us to punish for daring to complain about it, we got under threat of extradition and UNHCR rejected us. It was the very time when we needed international protection, most of all!
If we committed a crime which was against UN principles in Kazakhstan, we would be accused and tried by the police and DNSC. We always were under watch and bugging. But no one accused us of anything or tried. Because we didn’t commit any crime before or after applying UNHCR. This is our honest word! If honest word still means something in our days. Otherwise, they have to prove our guilt. Or, doesn’t the presumption of innocence apply to us?
After we were rejected by the Department, we filed an appeal to Migration Committee at the Ministry of Labor and Social Protection. Recently, we received rejection from them. Mr. Khabylsayat Abishev, chief of the committee, wrote in his conclusion, that after thorough investigation of our case, based on law and international conventions, the committee decided to leave the Department of Migration’s decision unchanged. Because they concluded there was nothing to threaten the refugees in their home country. Mr. Abishev either doesn’t know the situation in Uzbekistan, or he had an order from top, meaning, from the government. Otherwise, how can this be explained?
It is well-known that Uzbek government violates basic human rights, freedom of speech. The court system is corrupted and fully controlled and manipulated by the government. Any disagreement is persecuted, torture is used systematically.
Also, it is well-known that the UN Committee Against Torture listed Uzbekistan as a country that uses torture systematically, in 2003. Since then, Uzbekistan didn’t fulfill the committee’s any recommendations to prevent torture.
In the annual reports of the US State Department, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and other human rights organizations, Uzbekistan is considered as a country which uses torture systematically. As for government corruption, according to Transparency International’s corruption perceptions index, Uzbekistan scored 172 among 178 countries.
So, why we fled from Uzbekistan leaving our houses, relatives, properties behind us if there was no threat?
Now, our lawyers will appeal the Department of Immigration’s decision in court. But we have another problem. The Department of Immigration Almaty office was dissolved and transferred to Ministry of Internal Affairs. At present, it is not clear who will inherit the Department.
The General Prosecutor’s office is openly ignoring the law “Relating to Refugees”, article 18, paragraph 2 which prohibits to expel or return a refugee in any manner whatsoever to the frontiers of territories where his life or freedom would be threatened on account of his race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion. They also ignore:
1. UN Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees of 1951 (article 33, paragraph 1), ratified by Kazakh Parliament on December 15, 1988.
2. UN Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (article 3)
3. The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) (articles 7, 18, 19, and 22).
The General Prosecutor’s Office is still insisting in extradition of the refugees based on Minsk Convention, regarding them as criminals. As if we committed crime and now hiding in Kazakhstan. But we didn’t hide, we were registered in UNHCR, the Department of Immigration and Migration Police on time. Our children went to Almaty schools and we lived only in the registered apartments.
As for the accusations of Uzbekistan, they are all standard accusations for persecuting believers and dissidents. All this is done just to return the refugees and punish them to show their power, as if they have long hands to reach everywhere and they can punish anyone who dared to disagree with the government. How else, you can explain that some of refugees are incriminated by 34 articles of Criminal Law of Uzbekistan? Is it logical, that a single person can commit so many crimes without being sentenced or noticed? Some of the accusations are groundless and can’t be proved. If Uzbekistan had fair and just court system we would not be afraid to go back and prove our innocence. Returning to Uzbekistan is synonymous to going to death. Under unbearable tortures anyone can confess of any fabricated crimes. Other innocent people are also victimized. Under torture they are made to witness against accused people. Tortures are used not only in jails but continue in prisons after being sentenced. Prisoners are beaten up, raped, insulted, humiliated, tortured and infected with incurable diseases like Tuberculosis, typhus, AIDS. What will happen to our families? What will happen to 72 children of refugees? Now, they can hardly survive because their fathers, who were the only breadwinners, are in jail. Either they will face miserable return to Uzbekistan or wander to find some place to survive.
Some of the refugees underwent all of these pains. Family members of most refugees were also harmed. To take revenge, the government sentenced their brothers, relatives, friends, colleagues. Their properties were confiscated. Even after fleeing the country an Uzbek refugee can’t feel safe. We can’t understand what is our guilt before world community so all of them closing their eyes to our tragedy? Maybe the biggest crime we committed is we were born in Uzbekistan?! Or, after seventy years of atheistic regime we returned to our forefathers’ religion?! Why must we and our family suffer?
At present, prisons and jails are overfilled by politically sentenced people: opposition party members, art representatives, poets, journalists, and mostly religious people. The real criminals may be less than the third of all prisoners.
Dear Sir/Madam,
We think we are part of the world community. We are neither extremists nor terrorists! Otherwise we wouldn’t apply UNHCR. We chose legal and civilized way of protecting our rights, as we are sure about our innocence. We came to Kazakhstan, thinking that it was democratic and law-bound state, which was independent of Uzbekistan. We believe that the country chairing OSCE protects us from this. We trusted UNHCR and came with our families.
Now, Kazakhstan refused to give us a refuge. Of course, any country has that right to reject or accept. Apparently, it doesn’t want to have problems with Karimov’s regime. But why doesn’t Kazakhstan allow the refugees to leave its territory? On the contrary of the domestic and international laws, Kazakhstan is sending the refugees to death, torture, and humiliation? Why is UNHCR, to whom we trusted, silent? Where are eyes of the world community? Why is the whole world indifferent to the fates of these people, their children and wives?
We suppose that the only problem is that we’re Muslims. These days, every Muslim, first of all, has to prove he is not extremist and terrorist. Imagine, if 30 Christians or Jews were arrested by the requirement of Uzbekistan. The whole world would stand to protect these insulted and humiliated people. But here is a bunch of Muslims. Who cares about these “terrorists” or “extremists”?
If this is wrong assumption, we ask You to help us in this situation and protect these innocent refugees. Don’t allow us to doubt about our choice to protect us, our family by legal and civilized ways.
Otherwise, if we are returned to Uzbekistan and miraculously survive, then neither we nor our children will believe in democracy or high UN principles, which are applied, in our notion, only to particular group of people, not universally. We ask you not to reject us!
Truthfully yours,
Uzbek refugees:
1. Boltayev Ahmad
2. Jalolhonov Saidakabar
3. Nurillayev Bahriddin
4. Ostonov Ulugbek
5. Pardayev Isobek
6. Pulatov Oybek
7. Kurbanov Kobiljon
8. Turayev Ravshan
9. Tolipov Sirojiddin
10. Kholturayev Olimjon
11. Khurramov Sarvar
12. Rakhmatov Uktam
13. Sharipov Otobek
14. Shodiyev Akmaljon
15-11-2010
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