Human rights in Uzbekistan

Human rights in Uzbekistan have been described as "abysmal" by Human Rights Watch, and the country has received heavy criticism from the UK and the US for alleged arbitrary arrests, religious persecution and torture employed by the government on a regional and national level. Amnesty International stated that freedom of expression, association, and peaceful assembly continue to be restricted, and that relations between gay men are illegal.

Overview

Human Rights Watch stated that "Uzbekistan's record of cooperation with UN human rights mechanisms is arguably among the worst in the world. For the past 12 years, it has ignored requests for access by all 11 UN human rights experts, and has rejected virtually all recommendations that international bodies have made for human rights improvements." IHF have expressed profound concern about "wide-scale violation of virtually all basic human rights."

Also, religious freedom is one of the country's greatest issues.

The U.S. Department of State has designated Uzbekistan a Country of Particular Concern for the religious persecution practiced in the country,United States Department of State
International Religious Freedom Report 2008:
Executive Summary. and have defined Uzbekistan as "an authoritarian state with limited civil rights."
Human Rights Watch, however, says that the US government has "resisted imposing any serious policy or consequences for Uzbekistan's dismal rights record, viewing Tashkent as a key ally along the Northern Distribution Network (NDN) that it is using to withdraw supplies from the war in Afghanistan."

According to reports, the most widespread violations of human rights are torture, arbitrary arrests, and various restrictions of freedoms of religion, of speech and press, of free association and assembly. The reports maintain that the violations are most often committed against members of religious organizations, independent journalists, human right activists and political activists, including members of banned opposition parties.
In 2005, Uzbekistan was included into Freedom House's "The Worst of the Worst: The World's Most Repressive Societies."

The official position of the Uzbek government is summarized in a memorandum titled "The measures taken by the government of the Republic of Uzbekistan in the field of providing and encouraging human rights" and amounts to the following. The government does everything that is in its power to protect and to guarantee the human rights of Uzbekistan's citizens. Uzbekistan continuously improves its laws and institutions in order to create a more humane society. Over 300 laws regulating the rights and basic freedoms of the people have been passed by the parliament. For instance, an office of Ombudsman was established in 1996. On August 2, 2005, President Islom Karimov signed a decree that will abolish capital punishment in Uzbekistan on January 1, 2008.

Craig Murray, British ambassador 2002–2004, investigated human rights abuses, and, when his bosses at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office ignored his reports, he went public, bringing international attention to the situation. He was dismissed from his post, but continued to speak out against human rights abuses in the country. He also claimed there was extraordinary rendition by the United States of America to Uzbekistan, with surreptitious use of information obtained under torture as a result. Murray was removed from his post in October 2004, shortly after a leaked report in the ''Financial Times'' quoted him as claiming that MI6 used intelligence provided by Uzbek authorities that was acquired through torture. The FCO denied there was any direct connection and stated that Murray had been removed for "operational" reasons. In his book '' Murder in Samarkand'' (2006), Murray speculates that his anti-torture memos caused two problems for the US & UK governments. First, the CIA's extraordinary rendition program was secretly using Uzbekistan as a destination country to fly people to be tortured. Second, the transcripts of the torture sessions were then shared with Britain's MI6 because of the UK-US intelligence sharing agreements of World War II. By objecting to the UK's acceptance of CIA torture-obtained information, he was interfering with the secret rendition program as well as threatening the MI6's relationship with the CIA.

The 2005 civil unrest in Uzbekistan, which resulted in several hundred people being killed is viewed by many as a landmark event in the history of human rights abuse in Uzbekistan,
A concern has been expressed and a request for an independent investigation of the events has been made by the United States, European Union, the UN, the OSCE Chairman-in-Office and the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights.
The government of Uzbekistan is accused of unlawful termination of human life, denying its citizens freedom of assembly and freedom of expression. The government vehemently tried to rebuff the accusations, maintaining that it merely conducted an anti-terrorist operation, exercising only necessary force. In addition, some officials claim that "an information war on Uzbekistan has been declared" and the human rights violations in Andijan are invented by the enemies of Uzbekistan as a convenient pretext for intervention into the country's internal affairs.

The Constitution of Uzbekistan asserts that "democracy in the Republic of Uzbekistan shall be based upon common human principles, according to which the highest value shall be the human being, his life, freedom, honor, dignity and other inalienable rights."

Uzbekistan has abolished the death penalty. The abolition, initiated by the August 2005 decrees of President Karimov, became effective on January 1, 2008. Capital punishment has been substituted by longer term deprivation of liberty and life sentencing. (see Death penalty in Uzbekistan).

In 2015 Human Rights Watch reported that:

Freedom of religion

Religious literature which is not state-approved, including the Bible, is often confiscated and destroyed.Uzbekistan: Religious freedom survey, April 2005
Forum 18

Forum 18, a human rights organisation based in Norway, has documented raids by Uzbek police in which participants in unregistered religious services were beaten, fined, threatened and intimidated. In August 2005 one of the organisation's reporters was detained and deported by the authorities at Tashkent airport in Uzbekistan.

The Office of Public Information of Jehovah's Witnesses has documented several cases with imprisonment for teaching religion. The Barnabas Fund also states that Pastor Dmitri Shestakov was imprisoned for 4 years for Christian activities.

Torture

U.S.-based Human Rights Watch said in November 2007 that Uzbek prison authorities routinely beat prisoners and use electric shocks, asphyxiation and sexual humiliation to extract information and confessions. According to a forensic report commissioned by the British embassy, in August 2002 two prisoners were boiled to death. According to a report by the Human Rights Watch, Muslim prisoners have been tortured for praying.

Women's rights

Compulsory sterilization

It is reported that Uzbekistan has been pursuing a policy of forced sterilizations, hysterectomies and IUD insertions since the late 1990s in order to impose population control.Birth Control by Decree in Uzbekistan
IWPR Institute for War & Peace Reporting, published 2005-11-18, accessed 2012-04-12BBC News: Uzbekistan's policy of secretly sterilising women
BBC
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