With a toxic mixture of torture, intimidation, trumped-up charges, an unfair trial and appeals to a leftover law from its Stalinist past ( which prescribes up to three years jail time for male homosexual behavior ) , Uzbekistan has managed since May to keep the journalist and human-rights defender Ruslan Sharipov under lock and key.
Sharipov, 25, is caught in the middle of a showcase of extreme human-rights violations, in which he is allegedly regularly subjected to the brutality of law enforcement officials and kept behind bars thanks to Uzbekistan's disregard for international standards of justice.
Arrested in the capital by Tashkent police on May 26 on charges of homosexual conduct, Sharipov was brought to the Ministry of the Interior. He was allegedly threatened with violence, including rape with a bottle and suffocation, and questioned about a number of articles he had written concerning rights violations in Uzbekistan. Sharipov also reports he was beaten by police officers.
The original accusation under Article 120 of the Uzbek Criminal Code, which punishes 'consensual satisfaction of the sexual needs of one man with another man' was padded out the next day with charges of involving minors in 'anti-social behavior' ( Criminal Code Article 127 ) and having sexual relations with minors ( Article 128 ) .
Article 120 traces its history to a provision banning male homosexual conduct that Joseph Stalin introduced into the Soviet Union's laws. Uzbekistan is one of the very few successor states to the Soviet Union that has kept this law on the books, although Article 120 is in clear violation of a number of international human-rights treaties that have been signed by Uzbekistan.
Amnesty International knows of no other case in which Article 120 has been invoked, and thinks that Sharipov has been singled out because of his human-rights work. He has regularly reported about the intimidation of human-rights defenders in Uzbekistan, as well as about the use of torture by the police and security forces.
In the initial days following his arrest Sharipov complained to representatives of Human Rights Watch about the violent interrogation methods being used by the Uzbek authorities.
On July 16 Ruslan Sharipov was still in prison waiting for his trial and appealed to the Supreme Court of Uzbekistan. He insisted he had not had sexual relations with the alleged victims and that the court-ordered physical examination exonerated all of them. He further stated in his letter to the court that the case was an invention of the Ministry of the Interior, which sought to punish him for his critical reports about Uzbekistan as a correspondent for the Russian news agency PRIMA and for his activities as chairman of the unregistered rights organization 'Grazhdanskoe Sodeystvye' ( Civic Assistance ) .
According to his legal defense team, Ruslan Sharipov continued to maintain his innocence from the start of his closed-door trial July 23. But as the trial was nearing its end the witnesses for the prosecution were cross-examined and started to get confused. A three-day recess was used by Uzbek officials to extract a confession from Sharipov.
'I suffered torture and indescribable psychological pressure during the investigation at the Mirzo-Ulughbek district department for internal affairs in Tashkent, the aim being to obtain a court confession to a crime that I did not commit,' wrote Sharipov in a letter sent to United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan Sept. 5.
'The torture they applied was intended to leave no traces of beatings,' he said. 'I was unable to withstand all this torture any further—and I have only described some of it.'
Sharipov went on to list the police officers who assaulted him. 'They all said that … I would be imprisoned in any case, so it would be better for me to do everything they told me, so as to reduce the term of imprisonment and save my life and health. I remembered their warnings that the lawyers would go away, and I would be left in their hands. ... I was also scared about what they could do to my mother and brother, and also to my lawyers.
'A 'final statement' was taken from me—I wrote it under dictation—saying that I was committing suicide of my own free will. It was made clear ... if I made a single appeal or complaint, I would 'commit suicide'.'
On Aug. 8 Ruslan Sharipov reappeared in court. He dismissed his defense team and asked that his mother, the only outside observer who had been permitted to the proceedings, be denied further access to the trial. Sharipov issued a statement in court pleading guilty to all charges. He renounced critical articles he had written about Uzbekistan, and asked for the forgiveness of Uzbekistan' president, Islam Karimov, as well as for the forgiveness of the officers of two district departments of the Ministry of the Interior.
On August 13 Ruslan Sharipov was sentenced to five and a half years in prison.
Concerned about Sharipov's serious allegations of torture and ill-treatment, the Ministry of the Interior was approached by staff from the Institute for War and Peace Reporting, a charity based in the UK.
'I can tell you for a fact that no one laid a finger on Ruslan Sharipov—or even raised their voice to him—during the investigation,' said Oleg Bichenov, a senior officer in the ministry's department for combating terrorism, which has been involved in the case.
Bichenov's denials are at odds with well-documented reports from local and international rights organizations, which indicate violence is routine for Uzbek security forces.
Concerns that Sharipov is in constant danger of being tortured or ill-treated have only been reinforced by his appearance at the Tashkent City Court Sept. 25, where his appeal was being heard. Sharipov arrived with a swollen eye, an injury on his forehead and with his glasses broken. Officials said there had been a minor accident while driving to court. Sharipov was the only one injured.
At the closed hearing Sharipov's sentence was reduced from five and a half to four years. The court upheld the charges of homosexuality ( article 120 of the Uzbek criminal code ) and sex with a minor ( article 128 ) , but dropped the charge of involving minors in 'anti-social behavior' ( article 127 ) .
Sharipov's concerns for the safety of his family and lawyers have also been reinforced. On Aug. 28 rights campaigner Surat Ikramov, who had been active in defending Sharipov, was abducted in the capital and badly beaten. Ikramov believes the Uzbek security services were behind the attack, and were trying to get back at him for his role in defending Sharipov, whose case has been receiving a lot of international attention.
Write to the following addresses: General Procurator of Uzbekistan, Rashidjon Hamidovich KODIROV, Prosecutor General's Office of the Republic of Uzbekistan, ul. Yahyo Gulomov 66, Tashkent, 70000, Republic of Uzbekistan. Telegram: Prosecutor General's Office, Tashkent, Uzbekistan, E-mail: prokuratura@lawyer.com, Fax: + 998 71 133 39 17. Minister of Internal Affairs of the Republic of Uzbekistan, Zakirzan Almatovich Almatov, Fax: + 998 71 133 89 34.
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