Concerns in Europe: January - June 2001
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Amnesty International September 2001
AI Index: EUR 01/003/2001
access to Emin Usman five days after his
arrest. He was reportedly charged with
illegal distribution of religious materials.
However, one of the investigators told his
lawyer that he would also be charged
with attempted overthrow of the
constitutional order. On 1 March in the
early morning law enforcement officers
returned Emin Usman’s body to his
home for burial. Officers reportedly
refused to let the family see his body and
prepare it for burial. However, one of his
relatives, who apparently managed to
see the body, alleged that there was a
deep bloody wound at the back of Emin
Usman’s head. Scores of special security
officers were said to have cordoned off
the streets surrounding the Usman home
and to have restricted access to the area
as well as to the cemetery. During the
funeral, which was conducted about two
hours later, officers reportedly did not
allow friends and family close to Emin
Usman’s grave. Although the family had
been told by MVD officers on 28
February that Emin Usman committed
suicide, a medical certificate delivered
after the funeral gave the cause of death
as brain tumour. There was concern that
Emin Usman was arrested and tortured
because of his ethnic origin and his
religious convictions, and that he died as
a result of torture.
Political prisoners
Allegations of ill-treatment and torture in detention
of suspected members or supporters of Hizb-ut-
Tahrir and the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan
(IMU)
In its briefing for the Human Rights Committee AI
raised its concerns about consistent allegations that
devout Muslim prisoners were not allowed to read the
Koran or to pray in prison camps, and that they
reportedly also had their beards forcibly shaved. The
organization continued to receive reports that devout
Muslim prisoners were singled out for particularly
cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment in places of
detention, particularly prison camps. According to
relatives and former prisoners, upon arrival at a prison
camp suspected Wahhabists or suspected members or
supporters of Hizb-ut-Tahrir are separated from other
prisoners and made to run the gauntlet
34
. They are
forced to sing the national anthem and are severely
beaten if they refuse to do so. They are reportedly
beaten or confined to punishment cells if they are
caught praying. There are also allegations that devout
Muslim prisoners are subjected to beatings,
humiliation, forced labour and rape by other prisoners
with the complicity of prison authorities.
Hundreds of suspected members or supporters of
Hizb-ut-Tahrir were sentenced to long terms of
imprisonment on charges of membership of an illegal
party, distribution of illegal religious literature and
anti-state activities after trials which fell far short of
international fair trial procedures during the period
under review. AI also continued to receive scores of
reports that defendants in these trials were tortured
and ill-treated in detention in order to make them
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Former prisoners reported that they were made to run
between two lines of guards who beat them with truncheons as they
confess.
Trials of forcibly displaced ethnic Tajik villagers
accused of complicity with the IMU
In June 73 ethnic Tajik mountain villagers accused of
supporting the IMU during the August 2000 IMU
incursion into Uzbekistan were sentenced to long
prison terms in four separate closed trials, despite
earlier government assurances to the UN Human
Rights Committee that the action to evacuate the
villagers was taken in order to improve the living
conditions of the people concerned and that no
criminal cases would be opened against these forcibly
displaced villagers.
The group trials, which opened simultaneously
and without prior notice at the end of May, took place
in four courts in different districts of Tashkent. The
court buildings were cordoned off by armed police
and there was a heavy security presence inside the
court buildings. The police reportedly tried to
intimidate relatives trying to gain access to the court
proceedings and force them to leave Tashkent. Only
one foreign observer, representing the non-
governmental organization Human Rights Watch,
managed to obtain access to one of the trials; the rest
of the public, including foreign diplomats, local
human rights monitors, and the media were barred.
All 73 defendants were found guilty of
passed.