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Home , Uzbekistan

HONORARY CHAIRMAN ADVISORY BOARD (CHAIR) PRESIDENT Yuri Orlov Karl von Schwarzenberg Ludmilla Alexeyeva

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE VICE PRESIDENT Aaron Rhodes Sonja Biserko Ulrich Fischer

DEPUTY EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR Holly Cartner TREASURER Brigitte Dufour Bjørn Engesland Stein-Ivar Aarsæther Krassimir Kanev Andrzej Rzeplinski Wickenburgg. 14/7, A-1080 Vienna, Austria; Tel +43-1-408 88 22; Fax 408 88 22-50 e-mail: [email protected] – internet: http://www.ihf-hr.org Bank account: Bank Austria Creditanstalt, 0221-00283/00, BLZ 12 000

ANNUAL REPORT 1999

Uzbekistan

IHF Focus: Freedom of the media; political opposition; ; arbitrary detention and fair trial; death penalty; religious tolerance; women’s rights; defenders.

The media in remained under strict censorship and the right to political association was seriously limited. Local monitors reported that at least 120 possible political prisoners from valley, labeled Islamic extremists, were jailed on what were most likely fabricated charges. 1998 was marked by continued and increased repression of freedom of religion, also reflected in the introduction of a restrictive new law on religion. Other human rights concerns included reports about the use of , the death penalty and harassment of independent human rights defenders.

Freedom of the Media

The Soviet-style restrictions on media freedoms continued in Uzbekistan. Most media were state-owned, and the State Control Inspectorate continued to censor all press material. Virtually no criticism of the authorities was allowed. However, Uzbek media publicized human rights concerns in in connection with the Turkmen president's visit to the US.1 A new governmental body, the Qanoat Center,2 was established to review all religious literature and video and audio tapes.3 The State Committee on the Press announced the establishment of a "private" newspaper Kommercheskii Vestnik (Commercial Herald), which would apparently focus on uncontroversial business news. The Committee also said that there would "soon" be more "private" press organs, as several applications were pending. However, all newspapers were printed in the state monopoly houses and were subject to the same tight censorship as the state-run press.4

• On 11 June Syrdarya regional court found Shadi Mardiyev, a 62-year old radio from region, guilty of defamation, illicit handling of foreign currency and extortion under articles 139, 165 and 177 of the Uzbek criminal code. He was sentenced to 11 years strict-regime imprisonment. The Supreme Court upheld the conviction. Mardiyev was understood to have been

The IHF has consultative status with the and the Council of Europe. MEMBER AND COOPERATING* COMMITTEES IN: – Austria – - – Bosnia-Herzegovina – Bulgaria – Canada – – Czech – Denmark – Finland – France – * – Greece – Hungary – – – Kosovo – – Latvia – Lithuania – Macedonia – – – The Netherlands – Poland – Romania – – Serbia – Slovakia – Slovenia – – – * – United Kingdom – United States – Uzbekistan* COOPERATING ORGANIZATIONS: The European Roma Rights Center – Human Rights Without Frontiers – Mental Disability Advocacy Center held in solitary confinement until the Supreme Court hearing and to have suffered a heart attack while detained.5 The charge of defamation related to a June 1997 radio broadcast in which Mardiyev had satirized an alleged abuse of power by the deputy regional procurator of Samarkand.6

• On 1 August Russian Vitalii Ponomarev and Nikolai Motrokhin were assaulted and beaten in the center of by unknown attackers following their meeting with Marat Zakhidov, a well-known Uzbek human rights activist. The Glasnost Defense Foundation in Moscow believed the assault was connected with the journalists' investigation into "repression against religious organizations."7 Also, foreign media were restricted, particularly Russian media.

• In Uzbekistan halted the broadcasts of Russia's Youth Channel and reduced the broadcasts of Mayak to two hours.

• On 17 April the daily Kommersant reported that state censors in Uzbekistan were preventing the dissemination of information about the launching of the radio station Evropa Plus Tashkent, an affiliate of Moscow's Evropa Plus, which would broadcast in the .8

• Articles about Uzbekistan in the Russian newspapers Argumenty i Fakti and Trud – distributed in Uzbekistan - were regularly cut by local censors and replaced with "Uzbek advertising blocks."9 At the end of 1998 the Uzbek authorities refused to renew a contract from 1996 with the BBC Service, which allowed the BBC to hire a network of local medium wave and VHF transmitters in Uzbekistan, thus making their programs (including news and educational programs in ) more accessible to listeners throughout the country. The reason given was that the Uzbek authorities needed the facilities for their own new radio programmes. This coincided with the planned emission of a series of educational programs on human rights.10

Political Opposition

There has been an apparent decline in political opposition in Uzbekistan. Most opposition party and movement leaders have fled the country. All parties that emerged at the end of the Soviet period have been banned.11 On 6 March the Democratic Opposition Coordination Council ceased to exist, when one of its leaders, Shukrullo Mirsaidov announced that he was retiring from politics. Opposition groups were expected to face large difficulties in preparing for the presidential elections in 2000.12 Apparently to avoid having to stand for election, President Karimov called a referendum in March 1995, which prolonged his rule without new elections until 2000. According to the 1992 Uzbek constitution, a president may serve for a maximum of two terms. In August 1995, the parliament decided that extending Karimov's term through referendum meant that he was still serving his first term, not beginning his second, which would allow him to stand for election again in 2000.13

• On 4 March Muhammed Salih, who had been in self-imposed exile in since 1992, was asked by Turkish police to leave the country prior to the Turkish prime minister's visit to Tashkent at the end of March. He consequently fled to Romania. As Uzbekistan did not have as important relations with Romania as with Turkey, and as Uzbek security forces had a record of clandestine cross-border operations,14 it was feared that there might be attempts to spirit Salih away from Romania. Salih ran for presidency against current president Karimov in 1991. One year later the opposition party Erk, which he chaired, was banned in Uzbekistan, prompting Salih to leave the country.15 On 18 February 1999, his brother, Muhammed Begjon, was arrested in Kharezm after the police allegedly found cartridges in his car.16 • Aliboy Yuliakhshiyev, former head of the faculty of mathematics at Samarkand University and a prominent member of the Uzbek opposition movement Birlik, was reportedly arrested by Russian police on 3 November in Moscow, where he had lived since September. He was allegedly detained at the request of the Uzbek authorities, who issued a search warrant for him in 1995 accusing him under article 159 of the Uzbek criminal code of attempting to overthrow the constitutional order of Uzbekistan. The charge allegedly related to Aliboy Yuliakhshiyev‘s part in distributing the banned opposition newspaper Erk. Following a clamp-down on the political opposition in Uzbekistan, he was forced to leave the country in 1994 to escape arrest. He continued his opposition political activities in exile and helped organize the clandestine distribution in Uzbekistan of Erk, which is printed abroad. After being held for eight days in the temporary detention isolator at the central Moscow police station Petrovka 38, he was taken to the Matrosskaya Tishina pre-trial detention prison and kept there in a vastly overcrowded cell for 26 days. He was released on 7 December after Russian authorities took the decision not to forcibly repatriate him to Uzbekistan.17

Freedom of Assembly

On 23 January a group of about assembled outside a police station in Tashkent to protest the arrest and detention of their male relatives. The police broke up the demonstration and detained the women until late evening. Human rights activist Mukhtabar Akhmedova was fined a portion of her monthly for her alleged role as organizer of the protest.18

Arbitrary Detention and Fair Trial

According to information obtained by the Human Rights Society of Uzbekistan and other NGOs in and Tashkent, there were at least 120 possible political prisoners from , jailed on what was most likely fabricated charges. The routine pattern, which preceded these seemingly arbitrary arrests, was that law enforcement officers planted small amounts of narcotics, ammunition or weapons on the person, in their car or in the homes of the victims during a search. This was then used as basis for the charges. The "suspects" were then forced into signing a confession. Such illegal activity by the police was common practice in the general fight against crime, and frequently, other evidence was not necessary to find the defendants guilty – despite the fact that there was often no credible connection between the crime and the defendant. Law-enforcement officers and the judiciary were both corrupt and subservient to the government's orders both in politically motivated and religion- related cases, and even in "common" criminal cases. The law in Uzbekistan, following the Soviet tradition, required that a search be sanctioned by the procurator's office or by a judge, and that witnesses be present during the search. However, also following Soviet tradition, the authorities often brought their own "witnesses" to watch a search. There were also allegations that several persons were kept in prison, even after completion of their sentence. 19 At an OSCE meeting in Vienna, the Human Rights Society of Uzbekistan (HRSU) distributed a 10-page list with names and data of suspected political and religious prisoners in Uzbekistan, all arrests following the same pattern with discovery of narcotics, weapons or ammunition during a search.

• Shovrik Ruzimurodov, advocate of civil and political rights, was arrested in the city of Yakkabad in April. A group of 22 law enforcement officers forcibly entered his home and found 12 cartridges. He was released in August after HRSU raised his case with international organizations, including the OSCE Chairman-in-Office, who directly raised this case with President Karimov. The authorities kept his internal passport.20

"The Namangan Trials" Some 29 men were sentenced to long-term imprisonment in at least four separate trials in connection with the 1997 murders in Namangan and the Fergana valley in the first half of 1998. The trials were featured prominently in the state-controlled media, which were already running a propaganda campaign justifying the mass arrests as a necessary measure to counter a fundamentalist Islamic movement bent on overthrowing the existing state order.21

• On 7 May the trials of 12 out of a total of 27 suspected Islamic militants began in Namangan. The men were accused of planning the violence in Namangan last December. Four of the accused pleaded guilty to taking part in a conspiracy to undermine the state.22 All 12 were sentenced.23

• In a later trial the Uzbek prosecutor general on 1 June demanded that the seven men found guilty of involvement in the violence in Namangan last December receive 13-20 years in jail. He said all seven were Wahhabis and that the police had found pistol cartridges and marijuana in their homes. One of the convicted declared his innocence and said he had been beaten and kept in a straight jacket awaiting trial.24

• On 7 July, in the fourth trial against the alleged Wahhabis, Talib Mamajanov was sentenced to death.25 He had, possibly under torture,26 admitted to being a member of a criminal group responsible for killing 12 people, eight of them police officers, in the Fergana Valley between 1994 and 1997. Seven other men were charged with possession of weapons and harboring criminals. In the three earlier trials, all defendants were sentenced to prison terms.27

• In October 15 additional men, all said to have been followers of independent Islamic leader Abduvali Mirzoyev who "disappeared" in 1995, went on trial before the Supreme Court for their alleged participation in the 1997 Namangan murders. On 29 December they were sentenced to terms of imprisonment ranging from five to 16 years for premeditated murder, terrorism, creation and participation in a criminal group, attempt to overthrow the constitutional order and inciting religious hatred. As in previous trials, there were serious concerns that the defendants had been beaten or otherwise ill- treated in detention and had allegedly been forced under duress to confess to the charges. At least one defendant reportedly denied all accusations in court. Human rights monitors expressed concern that the defendants had not been judged for concrete criminal actions, but for being followers of an independent Islamic leader and for allegedly adhering to the Wahhabi ideology.28

• On 28 December the judge presiding over the trial of five men accused of being Wahhabi extremists postponed sentencing until January 1999 after some 200 supporters gathered outside Tashkent city court in protest at the proceedings. There was serious concern that the charges against Odilkhon Ziyokhonov, Olimzhon Yusupov, Khusan Abdusamatov, Mavlonbek Bekkhodzaev and Mamurzhon Igamberdiyev were fabricated and that the outcome of the trial might have been influenced by television reports at the outset of the trial in October, which described the men as Wahhabi extremists intent on destroying the established social and political order, spreading extremist ideas and establishing an Islamic state.29

• Odilkhon Ziyokhonov, accused of being the leader of the group, denied all accusations and claimed that he had been forced under duress to confess to charges of illegal possession of narcotics and firearms and forming a criminal group. He also alleged that the authorities arbitrarily linked the criminal case against the five men to the criminal case opened in March against independent Islamic leaders Obidkhon Nazarov and Yuldosh Ergashev, charged with conspiracy to overthrow the constitutional order. 30

Independent Monitors Upon the unexpected arrival of monitors at the trial of Abdulkhai and Muradullo Igamberdiev, the judge, Raykhon Mamarasulova, stopped the proceedings on the excuse that the courtroom was too dirty and that there was no flag on the wall. When the monitors reassured her that the trial should nonetheless continue, the judge falsely asserted that the trial could not proceed because the lay judges and the procurator were not in attendance. The procurator had been there before the judge interrupted the proceedings. The judge told the monitors the trial would start the following day in a different court at 2 p.m. However, when the monitors arrived as instructed, the entire courthouse was empty.31

Torture, Ill-Treatment and Misconduct by Law Enforcement Officials

There were allegations that at least three defendants in the Supreme Court trial, which sentenced Talib Mamadzhanov to death for the Namangan murders had been tortured and forced under duress to give false evidence. • Nosir Yusupov was said to have had a plastic bag placed over his head and to have been tortured by electric shocks. His 16-year-old son also alleged during the court hearing that he had been tortured. Co-defendant Isroil Parpiboyev stated in court that he was tortured with electric shocks, and in the winter taken naked to the prison yard after having cold water poured over him. He also alleged that a bottle was inserted into his anus and that vodka was poured onto his wounds. International observers at the trial noted that Talib Mamdzhanov appeared to be ill and lost consciousness during one hearing.32

Death Penalty

Uzbekistan still retained the death penalty. The 1995 penal code contains 13 crimes that are subject to capital punishment. There was no official information available about the number of death sentences and executions, as such information was classified as state secrets and any requests were being rejected. Such secrecy is in violation of the OSCE commitment par. 17.8 of the Copenhagen Document, which states that the participating states will make available to the public information regarding the use of the death penalty.33 At least one death sentence was handed down in 1998 in connection with the trial against the alleged Islamic fundamentalists.

Religious Tolerance

President Karimov has in parliamentary debates shown strong hostility towards outside the control of the government-sponsored Muslim Board. In connection with the adoption of the new law on religion in May 1998, he stated:

"Such people [Islamic extremists] must be shot in the head. If necessary I shall shoot them myself…"34 The year 1998 was marked by continued and increased repression of freedom of . In December 1997 and January 1998 there was a wave of mass arrests, following the beheading of an officer in the traffic department of the Ministry of Interior, as well as several other killings in 1996-97 of law enforcement officers in the Islamic stronghold Fergana Valley. It was assumed that possibly over a thousand people were arrested on fabricated charges of illegal possession of weapons and drugs.35 On 8 January the civil and official religious authorities issued a ban on using loudspeakers in . On 15 May a new Law on Freedom of Conscience and Religious Organizations was adopted. 36

Law on Freedom of Conscience and Religious Organizations The new Law on Freedom of Conscience and Religious Organizations was characterized by an increase in state control on religious groups and the de facto criminalization of unregistered religious activity. Registration was compulsory for all religious groups, local and national, and the groups needed the approval of the governmental Committee for Religious Affairs before they could apply for registration with the Ministry of Justice.37 Following the introduction of the law, religious organizations had to submit an application for re-registration by 15 August 1998 in order to be able to operate legally. However, the organizations received details on the re-registration process only the last week of June. Even before the official deadline of 15 August, the authorities started to target different religious groups. Anyone involved in unregistered religious activity faced criminal responsibility, which included heavy fines or imprisonment for up to five years.38 Only centralized religious organizations were allowed to publish religious material or produce religious objects. All imported religious literature had to be censored by the state.39 The new legislation also outlawed activities, the teaching of religious subjects without official permission, and publishing material that advocates extremism, , and chauvinism, as well as wearing religious garments in public.40 One of the most critical provisions of the law was article 11, which stipulated the minimum membership of a religious organization, including local congregations, at one hundred persons. This meant that most minority religions would have problems obtaining registration.41 Small Protestant churches had fallen victim to harassment already before the new law was implemented. In recent years, they had on occasions had their services stopped, their leaders arrested, summoned to courts and fined, and the homes of their members searched.42

• On 11 May police raided homes of Jehovah's Witnesses in Shakrisabz and questioned several people, three of which whom were later fined.43 • On 25 June procurator A.T. Imomov in the district Samarkand banned a small Jehovah's Witnesses community because it had only 30 to 40 members and had allegedly committed a "gross violation" by failing to register with the local justice administration. Imomov ordered the group to halt all its activities immediately.44 On 18 November three Jehovah's Witnesses from Tashkent, who were prosecuted for holding a private religious meeting, were sentenced to pay fines.45

Crackdown on Alleged Islamic Extremism The government committed serious abuses in its drive to quell an alleged wave of Islamic extremism. Those abuses included arbitrary mass arrests and "disappearance" of Islamic leaders, particularly during the December 1997 brutal sweeps by police and security forces in the Fergana Valley, during which the police arbitrarily detained and arrested hundreds of people without legal justification. Some of these individuals were arrested solely on the basis of their religious affiliation, or for completely non-violent activities such as disseminating religious literature and audio-tapes, or for their association with well-known clergymen, whom the authorities considered to be leaders of the so-called Wahhabi movement. Independent testimony indicated that the police routinely beat or tortured suspects as well as threatened their relatives in order to extract confessions, which were later used as evidence in court proceedings. This was accompanied by a vigorous public information campaign, which portrayed the arrests as necessary measures in an effort to combat Islamic and its alleged anti-government activities before it destabilized the state.46

• Bakhodir Turgunovich Nishonov, a student of the Tashkent Islamic Institute, was reportedly arrested in December 1997 by officers of the Ministry of the Interior and charged with distributing tapes of lectures and speeches of religious themes by independent Islamic leader Obidkhon Nazarov. During a non-sanctioned search of Nishonov‘s apartment, the officers confiscated video and audio tapes containing recordings of lectures by Obidkhon Nazarov for the Uzbek service of Radio Liberty. He was consequently sentenced to three years imprisonment.47

• The elected kazi (muslim judge) of the Fergana valley, Abdurauf Gafurov, was given an additional two-year sentence in April for "disobeying the prison administration." This was the third time additional criminal charges had been brought against Abdurauf Gafurov - he had previously received additional two- year term’s imprisonment in 1995 and 1996 - and there were allegations that this latest charge had also been fabricated in order to prevent him from qualifying for release at the expiry of his sentence in the first half of 1998.48

• In Tashkent, five alleged followers of the "Wahhabi" movement49 were arrested during January and March and charged with "unconstitutional calls to change the existing constitutional system."50

• Leading independent imam Obidkhon Nazarov suffered persistent government harassment in 1998 and has not been seen since 5 March. The Spiritual Directorate had removed Nazarov from his position as imam in December 1995 for "disobedience to the decrees of the spiritual directorate." On 29 April the Fergana regional court sentenced his brother, Abdumalik Nazarov, who was arrested during the December crackdown, to nine years in prison for possession of narcotics.51

• Gulomkir Musajanov was on 18 October sentenced to ten years in prison, charged with "possession of narcotics and explosives", spreading religious propaganda and "unconstitutional calls to change the constitutional system." Reportedly, police planted narcotics, a saber and an explosive on him. In addition, he was reportedly required to give a bribe of US$4,000 to remove "possession of explosives" from the list of official charges against him.52 In August Rakhmat Otakulov, a religious teacher, was released from prison after his term of imprisonment was commuted to a non-custodial sentence. He had been sentenced to three and a half years‘ imprisonment on allegedly fabricated charges of illegal possession of weapons and narcotics on 13 June 1997.53

Women’s Rights

There were problems with regards to discrimination against women, although the government preferred to deny these problems. Uzbekistan placed great emphasis on protective legislation with regards to gender equality,54 and this was eagerly referred to as a positive measure when confronted with questions about discrimination against women in employment. During an OSCE/UNDP regional consultation on Women's Rights in Tashkent in June, official Uzbek representatives stated that there was no female unemployment in Uzbekistan. This was refuted by international representatives who had observed a queue of unemployed women outside their office in connection with a job vacancy. Although the existence of domestic violence was denied by government representatives, the participants in the OSCE/UNDP consultation were given a forum to openly discuss this problem. This was a welcome first step toward addressing domestic violence, but major obstacles remained, among them police indifference to women’s complaints.55

Human Rights Defenders

In 1998 the government again refused to register the two leading human rights groups in the country, the Human Rights Society of Uzbekistan (HRSU) and the Independent Human Rights Organization of Uzbekistan (IHROU). • Members of the Namangan branch of the HRSU reported continual harassment by local authorities. Unidentified men in plain clothes followed the groups' members, and unmarked police cars were regularly parked outside their homes. Family members of arrested men who shared information with the group were called in by local police, questioned, and threatened that their relatives' sentences would be extended if they continued to speak with human rights activists.56 On 22 January, members of the Namangan branch of the HRSU sent a letter to Sayora Rashidova57 and head of the National Human Rights Center, Akmal Saidov, expressing their desire to set up a joint commission to examine human rights violations in the . Rashidova forwarded the letter to the prosecutor general with the result that in February, the leader of the Namangan Committee was summoned to the local Prosecutor's Office and questioned about the letters, as well as about their sources of information on human rights abuses and events in Namangan. The committee refused to give information and was allowed to leave without divulging their sources.58

• On 13 August Birlik Public movement of Uzbekistan filed an appeal with the local administration (Hokimiat) and with the Administration of Internal Affairs (AIA) of the Namangan region. Together with this document was enclosed the text of an appeal to the citizens to join the movement. The document also indicated the places (tea houses "Veterany" and "Himik") where people could get more information on the movement. On 21 August, Mahamadali Karabaev, chairman of the Committee to Protect Rights of Individuals in Uzbekistan, and Yokubjon Holikov, representative of the Independent Organization for Human Rights in Uzbekistan, were abducted in "Veterany" tea house by 5-6 law enforcement officers. They were taken to the AIA and interrogated for five hours. Karabaev and Holikov were searched and all documents in their possession were confiscated, including application forms to join the Birlik movement, as well as addresses. Karabaev and Holikov were questioned about who else had copies of such documents, where the documents were kept and how many people had already joined the organization, and they were warned not to go again to the tea houses in question.59

• During an OSCE meeting in in October, Secretary General of the Uzbekistan Society for Human Rights, Talib Yakubov, was attacked and beaten by unknown assailants upon leaving his hotel. The incident was suspected having been orchestrated by Uzbek authorities.60

FOOTNOTES: 1. Information from Human Rights Watch /Europe and Central Division, 10 September 1998. 2. Uzbek for "moderation." 3. Human Rights Watch World Report 1999, Europe and Division. 4. Information from Human Rights Watch/Europe and Central Asia Division, 10 September 1998. 5. Concerns in Europe June - December 1998. 6. RFE/RL, 30 June 1998; Amnesty International Concerns in Europe June – December 1998. 7. Felix Corley, RFE/RL Newsline, 7 August 1998. 8. RFE/RL Newsline, 20 April 1998. 9. Ibid. 10. Information from BBC World Service in Uzbekistan. 11. Felix Corley, " Karimov's Everlasting First Term," Transitions, October 1998. 12. RFE/RL Uzbek Service, 17 March 1998. 13. Felix Corley, "'s Everlasting First Term," Transitions, October 1998. 14. In January Uzbek security agents crossed into Kyrgyzstan, arrested Zakirjan Normatov in , and brought him back to Tashkent without even notifying the Kyrgyz government. Source: RFE/RL Uzbek Service, 17 March 1998. 15. RFE/RL Uzbek Service, 17 March 1998. 16. RFE/RL Newsline, 22 February 1999. 17. Amnesty International Concerns in Europe June - December 1998. 18. Human Rights Watch World Report 1999, Europe and Central Asia Division. 19. Crackdown in the Farghona Valley: Arbitrary Arrests and Religious Discrimination, Human Rights Watch, May 1998; Information from the Human Rights Society of Uzbekistan. 20. Information Bulletin No. 1, 1998, Human Rights Society of Uzbekistan. 21. Human Rights Watch World Report 1999, Europe and Central Asia Division; Information Bulletin on Human Rights, No. 1, 1998, Namangan Divisions of the Committee for Protection of Individuals of Uzbekistan (KZPLU) and the Society of Human Rights of Uzbekistan (OPCHU). 22. RFE/RL Newsline, 11 May 1998. 23. RFE/RL Newsline, 2 June 1998. 24. Ibid. 25. Amnesty International Concerns in Europe June - December 1998. 26. See Torture. 27. RFE/RL Newsline, 25 June 1998. 28. Amnesty International Concerns in Europe June - December 1998. 29. Ibid. 30. Ibid. 31. Republic of Uzbekistan-Crackdown in the Ferghana Valley: Arbitrary Arrests and Religious Discrimination, Human Rights Watch, May 1998. 32. Amnesty International Concerns in Europe June - December 1998. 33. Capital Punishment in the OSCE Region, OSCE/ODIHR, October 1998. 34. Remarks by President Karimov in the Uzbek parliament referring to Islamic extremists, in connection with the adoption of the new law on religion in May 1998. This extract is emitted from the official reports of the speech. Source: Felix Corley, 7 August 1998, distributed by Human Rights Without Frontiers, 6 November 1998. 35. Information Bulletin on Human Rights, No. 1, 1998, Namangan Division of the Committee of Protection of Individuals of Uzbekistan (KZPLU) and Namangan Division of the Society of Human Rights of Uzbekistan (OPCHU); Crackdown in the Farghona Valley: Arbitrary Arrests and Religious Discrimination, Human Rights Watch, May 1998. 36. Information Bulletin on Human Rights, No. 1, 1998, Namangan Division of the Committee of Protection of Individuals of Uzbekistan (KZPLU) and Namangan Division of the Society of Human Rights of Uzbekistan (OPCHU). 37. Felix Corley, Keston News Service; RFE/RL Newsline, 7 August 1998. 38. Human Rights Without Frontiers, 3 September 1998. 39. Felix Corley, Keston News Service, 10 June 1998. 40. RFE/RL Newsline, May 1998; Felix Corley, Keston News Service; RFE/RL Newsline, 7 August 1998. 41. Human Rights Without Frontiers, 11 June 1998. 42. Human Rights Without Frontiers, 21 August 1998. 43. Human Rights Without Frontiers, 3 September 1998. 44. Ibid. 45. Human Rights Without Frontiers, 26 November 1998. 46. Crackdown in the Farghona Valley: Arbitrary Arrests and Religious Discrimination, Human Rights Watch, May 1998. 47. Amnesty International Concerns in Europe June - December 1998. 48. Ibid. 49. Olimjon Yusupov, Akilkhon Ziyakhanov, Khusan Abdusamatov, Movlonbek Bekkhodjaev and Mamurjon Igamberdiev. 50. Information from the Human Rights Society of Uzbekistan. 51. Human Rights Watch World Report 1999, Europe and Central Asia Division. 52. Information from the Human Rights Society of Uzbekistan. 53. Amnesty International Concerns in Europe June - December 1998. 54. For example, legislation regulating the number of kilos a woman is allowed to carry, (reducing it from 15 to 9 kilos), and legislation making it illegal for women to do certain types of work. 55. Human Rights Watch World Report 1999, Europe and Central Asia Division; Notes from the OSCE ODIHR/UNDP regional consultation on Women in Public Life, Tashkent, June 1998. 56. Human Rights Watch World Report 1999, Europe and Central Asia Division. 57. Rashidova is daughter of the former Chairman of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Uzbekistan 58. Human Rights Watch World Report 1999, Europe and Central Asia Division; Information Bulletin on Human Rights, No. 1, 1998, Namangan Division of the Committee of Protection of Individuals of Uzbekistan (KZPLU) and Namangan Division of the Society of Human Rights of Uzbekistan (OPCHU). 59. Talib Yakubov, Secretary General of the Uzbekistan Society for Human Rights, and Ramazan Dyryldaev, Kyrgyz Committee for Human Rights, 9 September 1998. 60. OSCE Implementation Meeting on Human Dimension Issues 1998.