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Uzbekistan "And It Was Hell All Over Again...": Torture in Uzbekistan Summary

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Uzbekistan December 2000 Vol. 12 No.12 (D) UZBEKISTAN "AND IT WAS HELL ALL OVER AGAIN...": TORTURE IN UZBEKISTAN SUMMARY ...............................................................................................................................................................3 BACKGROUND........................................................................................................................................................4 TORTURE IN UZBEK LAW ....................................................................................................................................6 TORTURE..................................................................................................................................................................7 Introduction.........................................................................................................................................................7 Forms of Physical Torture...................................................................................................................................9 Beatings.........................................................................................................................................................9 Asphyxiation ................................................................................................................................................12 Electric Shock..............................................................................................................................................12 Rape and Other Sexual Violence .................................................................................................................13 Deprivation of Sleep, Food, and Water .......................................................................................................16 Other Abuses ...............................................................................................................................................16 Psychological Pressure and Cruel and Degrading Treatment............................................................................17 Threats.........................................................................................................................................................17 Family Members..........................................................................................................................................19 Hate Rallies .................................................................................................................................................22 THE LACK OF PROCEDURAL SAFEGUARDS..................................................................................................23 Arbitrary Arrests and the Lack of Judicial Review of Detention ......................................................................24 Unregistered Detentions..............................................................................................................................25 Restrictions on the Right to Counsel of One=s Own Choosing..........................................................................26 Medical Documentation of Torture...................................................................................................................31 Judicial Indifference to Torture.........................................................................................................................34 Police Intimidation During the Trial .................................................................................................................37 The Centrality of Confessions...........................................................................................................................37 IMPUNITY FOR TORTURE...................................................................................................................................39 Compensation ...................................................................................................................................................43 CORRUPTION.........................................................................................................................................................44 THE STATE=S RESPONSE TO THE PROBLEM OF TORTURE.........................................................................46 INTERNATIONAL RESPONSE.............................................................................................................................48 CONCLUSIONS ......................................................................................................................................................49 RECOMMENDATIONS..........................................................................................................................................50 To the Government of Uzbekistan ....................................................................................................................50 To the United Nations.......................................................................................................................................51 To the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe...........................................................................51 To the European Union.....................................................................................................................................52 To the United States..........................................................................................................................................52 To the World Bank, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the European Investment Bank, and the Asian Development Bank........................................................................................53 APPENDIX 1: List of Deaths in Pre-trial Detention Documented Deaths in Post-Conviction Prison from Torture...................................................................................54 APPENDIX 2: Letter from Dmitri Chikunov to his Mother.....................................................................................55 APPENDIX 3: Letter from Human Rights Watch to Mr. Zokirjon Almatov, Ministry of Internal Affairs...............57 APPENDIX 4 ...........................................................................................................................................................60 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS......................................................................................................................................61 Human Rights Watch 2 December 2000, Vol. 12, No. 12 (D) SUMMARY Widespread torture of detainees is common in criminal investigations in Uzbekistan, and has become an unmistakable feature of the government=s crackdown against independent Islam. Uzbekistan=s government refuses to hold police and security forces accountable for acts of torture, and even tacitly encourages torture though its broadcasting of political prisoners= public Aconfessions@ as tools of political propaganda. Instituting legal and judicial reform to halt torture, and ending impunity for it, should be a matter of priority for the government of Uzbekistan and for all parties interested in human rights and the security and stability of the region. Persons detained by police in Uzbekistan are routinely subjected to physical and psychological abuse, often from the initial moments of their arrest. Mounting numbers of deaths in pre- and post-conviction detention facilities over the past two years attest to the brutality of the treatment meted out against detainees and prisoners. Although Uzbek law criminalizes torture, few law enforcement officers are held accountable for it. Uzbek courts routinely rely on evidence extracted under torture, despite rulings barring the admissibility of this evidence. This report is based on four years of research conducted by Human Rights Watch researchers in different provinces of Uzbekistan. We interviewed scores of former detainees and family members of current and former prisoners, and their lawyers, who gave detailed testimony about gruesome torture practices, despite the pervasive atmosphere of fear generated by Uzbekistan=s hardened authoritarian political system. Their accounts, and the proceedings of dozens of trials in which defendants made allegations of torture, all substantiate the pattern of official acceptance of the practice of torture. Most of them testified to abuse in the pre-trial detention facilities of Tashkent=s Ministry of Internal Affairs headquarters (MVD), the headquarters of the National Security Service (SNB, formerly the KGB), and Tashkent=s Municipal Police Department (GUVD), but victims and their families also testified to torture in police lock-ups in all other provinces of the country and the Autonomous Province of Karakalpakstan. Torture victims include those arrested in connection with common crimes as well as those accused of political and religious offenses. The mass arrests of those suspected of opposition sentiment based on their religious affiliation, however, has brought to light many instances of torture, often during trials in which defendants have detailed their ill- treatment. Since 1998, the government has arrested thousands of persons in a crackdown against those whose practice of Islam falls outside of state-sanctioned religion, often charging them will ill-defined crimes of Areligious extremism.@1 Police routinely torture defendants in these cases not only to obtain confessions
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