Prison Watchdog Unlikely to be Effective

The new post of “prison ombudsman” to protect the rights of convicts is to be introduced in Uzbekistan, but NBCentralAsia observers say the human rights situation in the prisons as lobng as the interior ministry is in charge of the penal system.



Plans to introduce the position were announced by Uzbek media last week. The penal watchdog will come under the office of the parliamentary ombudsman for human rights, and will also work with the Association of Doctors and the interior ministry.



The office of parliamentary ombudsman was established in 1995 to monitor human rights, including those of prison inmates, to review citizen’s complaints, and to investigate cases of alleged human rights violations – including torture – by the prosecutor general’s office and interior ministry.



The introduction of a special ombudsman for the penal system is supposed to improve the monitoring of human rights abuse in the prisons.



NBCentralAsia observers have welcomed the initiative, but remain skeptical about its chances of success, saying the new institution will be undermined by the lack of reforms in the penal system.



“This proposal is right and necessary, but is unlikely to bring results. A complete overhaul of the Uzbek penal system is needed to protect the rights of inmates effectively,” said Surat Ikramov, head of the Initiative Group of Independent Human Rights Activists in Uzbekistan.



Ikramov said the penal system needs to be separated from the interior ministry and handed over to the justice ministry. “At the moment, the interior ministry investigates people, puts them in jail and oversees them there – it’s a kind of sinister chain,” he said.



According to human rights activists, over 80,000 people are currently being held in Uzbekistan’s 50 prisons and pre-trial detention centres.



A representative of the opposition Committee for the National Salvation of Uzbekistan said the new ombudsman will make no difference to the human rights situation in prisons, given that the existing human rights ombudsman has performed poorly.



“This institution will be completely inactive and toothless, despite its grand formal title. The [current] ombudsman should be dealing with human rights, without the need to create another one,” he said.



(News Briefing Central Asia draws comment and analysis from a broad range of political observers across the region.)