88
Concerns in Europe: January - June 2001
AI Index: EUR 01/003/2001
Amnesty International September 2001
collaborating with the IMU and sentenced to between
three and 18 years’ imprisonment after allegedly
unfair trials which lasted only five days. According to
the Human Rights Watch observer, the prosecution
failed to provide any substantiative evidence to prove
that the defendants aided and abetted the IMU. All of
the
defendants
had
allegedly
been
held
incommunicado until their trial and had not been
granted the right to be represented by a lawyer of their
own choice. In court the defendants reportedly
withdrew their confessions and claimed that they had
been tortured in order to force them to confess to
fabricated charges. According to Human Rights
Watch the defendants alleged that they had been
forced to memorize and recite prepared confessions on
film. Some of the men showed the court marks on their
bodies allegedly inflicted by torture. The court,
however, failed to take any of these allegations into
consideration. The defence was reportedly only given
40 minutes in which to present its case.
In August 2000 the Uzbek military forcibly and
without prior noticed rounded up and resettled the
mostly ethnic Tajik inhabitants from 11 mountain
villages in the Sariasinsky district of the southern
Uzbek region of Surkhandarynsk, on the border with
Tajikistan, reportedly because armed units of the IMU
had infiltrated these villages. Some of those resettled
were said to have been arbitrarily detained. According
to witness accounts, the villagers were forced into
military helicopters at gunpoint, they were not
allowed to take any of their belongings or their
livestock, and they were not told where they were
being resettled. The villages were then set on fire and
bombed, destroying livestock, houses and fields. The
villagers were first resettled in children’s summer
camps and makeshift tent camps in cotton fields
without proper infrastructure and sanitation some 90
km inland. In November, reportedly following
complaints about their living conditions, the displaced
villagers were moved a further 150 km inland to the
desert in Sherobad district, where they were resettled
into abandoned houses, allegedly unfit for habitation
and with no drinking water. According to unofficial
sources arbitrary arrests of male villagers over the age
of 17 started around the time of the second
resettlement.
All
the
men
were
held
in
incommunicado detention and there were concerns
that they were tortured. AI received information that
ethnic Tajik men, other than those from the 11
mountain villages, were also arbitrarily detained. No
reliable figure for the total number of arrests has been
established, but some unofficial sources estimated that
some 1000 male villagers might have been detained.
According to official government figures 1,333
villagers in total were resettled, although unofficial
sources believed that number to over 3,000.
The death penalty
During the period under review Uzbekistan continued
to regard information on the application of the death
penalty as a state secret. During its review of
Uzbekistan’s report (see above) the Human Rights
Committee
expressed
regret
that
Uzbekistan
continued to disregard its international obligations to
make information on the death penalty publicly
available. In its Concluding Observations the Human
Rights Committee requested that the Uzbek
authorities provide information on the death penalty
within 12 months.
AI remained seriously concerned that Uzbekistan
continued to pass death sentences, and to execute
those convicted. The fact that a substantial number of
men sentenced to death alleged that they were tortured
in pre-trial detention greatly heightened this concern.
The organization was also concerned that the way
in which relatives of prisoners condemned to death
were treated by the Uzbek authorities caused
unnecessary distress and itself constituted cruel,
inhuman and degrading treatment. The family is not
informed of the date of execution and does not have
the right to receive the body of the executed man,
which is buried in an unmarked grave in an
undisclosed location. In scores of cases, the family
have not been notified of the death of the prisoner until
months after the execution has taken place. In some
cases the family may not even receive a death
certificate.
New death sentences
Nikolay Ganiyev was sentenced to death on 29 March
2001 by Tashkent City Court for premeditated
aggravated murder. The Appeals Board of Tashkent
City Court turned down his appeal against the
35
He was reportedly made to run between two lines of
sentence on 1 June. Nikolay Ganiyev confessed to the
murder, but denied that it was premeditated. He
alleged that he was severely beaten by MVD officers
after he was detained.
In a separate case, Nigmatullo Fayzullayev and
Maksim Strakhov were sentenced to death by
Tashkent City Court on 18 April for premeditated
aggravated murder. The Appeals Board of Tashkent
City Court upheld their death sentences on 29 May.
Maksim Strakhov’s mother reported that when
her son was arrested on 2 October 2000, he was
severely beaten by law enforcement officers for more
than three days. Maksim Strakhov wrote in a letter to
his mother that he had been made to run the gauntlet
35
.
Maksim Strakhov admitted having committed murder
but insisted that “he had lost his mind and couldn’t
remember how it happened”. He had reportedly
previously received psychiatric treatment for post-
traumatic stress symptoms after military service in
Chechnya. According to his lawyer, he was also
thought to be at risk of suicide during the pre-trial
investigation, but the court of first instance and the
Appeal Board failed to take either circumstances into
account when reaching their verdict. However, the
General Procuracy was reported to have lodged a
guards who kicked him and beat him with truncheons as he passed