Talk of Legal Rights in Uzbekistan Doesn't Reflect Reality
Talk of Legal Rights in Uzbekistan Doesn't Reflect Reality
The Uzbek authorities have taken to stressing the importance of rule of law, but NBCentral Asia observers say talk is worth little when there has been no improvement in respect for basic human rights.
On April 29, the Gov.uz portal reported that the authorities were engaged in a “wide-ranging effort to establish a culture of law, improving existing laws and raising public awareness of the various opportunities for redress.
According to the report, the lower house of Uzbekistan’s parliament has been hearing reports from legal experts, university lecturers and law-enforcement officers on the extent to which members of the public are aware of their rights.
This process has been going on since 1997, when the government adopted a national programme to improve legal awareness, set up a centre for improving lawyers’ skills and started introducing special courses in the school and university curricula on knowledge of and respect for the law.
The authorities hold conferences on legal issues, publish official figures for human rights violations, and report on the action taken when citizens complain their rights have been breached. For instance, the interior ministry has a human rights department which reported that in the first quarter of 2009, it received over 800 complaints alleging abuses by police.
Human rights activists have little confidence that any of this information reflects the real state of affairs.
“It would be naive to believe a real campaign for human rights observance is under way,” said Nadezhda Ataeva, head of the Human Rights in Central Asia Association, based in France.
Ataeva said Uzbekistan remains a state where human rights abuses are commonplace, dissidents are persecuted, there is no freedom of speech, and prisoners are tortured.
In its human rights report for 2008, the US State Department said Uzbekistan was one of the most authoritarian states in the former Soviet Union.
Commentators interviewed by NBCentralAsia say the only reason people are compelled to be familiar with the law is that anyone can fall under suspicion and become the object of security service’s attention as a potentially disloyal citizen. Journalists and human rights defenders are particularly vulnerable to arrest.
Possessing a knowledge of the law is one thing; finding a way of exercising one’s rights quite another.
Surat Ikramov, head of the Initiative Group of Independent Human Rights Activists of Uzbekistan, says many people come to him in Tashkent for help after first appealing to state institutions, but finding them unresponsive.
“People write letters to the president, the prime minister, the prosecutor general’s office and the interior minister, but they get formulaic replies,” said Ikramov. “Then they go to the [official human rights] ombudsman, who forwards their complaints to the very same institutions against which they have made allegations. It doesn’t make sense.”
Commentators say that under current circumstances, it makes no sense for the authorities to be talking about a culture of observing the law in society; what they should be doing is ensure that government agencies themselves respect and follow the law.
According to Ikramov, “The authorities are doing PR, but the facts aren’t there.”
(NBCentralAsia is an IWPR-funded project to create a multilingual news analysis and comment service for Central Asia, drawing on the expertise of a broad range of political observers across the region. The project ran from August 2006 to September 2007, covering all five regional states. With new funding, the service has resumed, covering Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan.)
On April 29, the Gov.uz portal reported that the authorities were engaged in a “wide-ranging effort to establish a culture of law, improving existing laws and raising public awareness of the various opportunities for redress.
According to the report, the lower house of Uzbekistan’s parliament has been hearing reports from legal experts, university lecturers and law-enforcement officers on the extent to which members of the public are aware of their rights.
This process has been going on since 1997, when the government adopted a national programme to improve legal awareness, set up a centre for improving lawyers’ skills and started introducing special courses in the school and university curricula on knowledge of and respect for the law.
The authorities hold conferences on legal issues, publish official figures for human rights violations, and report on the action taken when citizens complain their rights have been breached. For instance, the interior ministry has a human rights department which reported that in the first quarter of 2009, it received over 800 complaints alleging abuses by police.
Human rights activists have little confidence that any of this information reflects the real state of affairs.
“It would be naive to believe a real campaign for human rights observance is under way,” said Nadezhda Ataeva, head of the Human Rights in Central Asia Association, based in France.
Ataeva said Uzbekistan remains a state where human rights abuses are commonplace, dissidents are persecuted, there is no freedom of speech, and prisoners are tortured.
In its human rights report for 2008, the US State Department said Uzbekistan was one of the most authoritarian states in the former Soviet Union.
Commentators interviewed by NBCentralAsia say the only reason people are compelled to be familiar with the law is that anyone can fall under suspicion and become the object of security service’s attention as a potentially disloyal citizen. Journalists and human rights defenders are particularly vulnerable to arrest.
Possessing a knowledge of the law is one thing; finding a way of exercising one’s rights quite another.
Surat Ikramov, head of the Initiative Group of Independent Human Rights Activists of Uzbekistan, says many people come to him in Tashkent for help after first appealing to state institutions, but finding them unresponsive.
“People write letters to the president, the prime minister, the prosecutor general’s office and the interior minister, but they get formulaic replies,” said Ikramov. “Then they go to the [official human rights] ombudsman, who forwards their complaints to the very same institutions against which they have made allegations. It doesn’t make sense.”
Commentators say that under current circumstances, it makes no sense for the authorities to be talking about a culture of observing the law in society; what they should be doing is ensure that government agencies themselves respect and follow the law.
According to Ikramov, “The authorities are doing PR, but the facts aren’t there.”
(NBCentralAsia is an IWPR-funded project to create a multilingual news analysis and comment service for Central Asia, drawing on the expertise of a broad range of political observers across the region. The project ran from August 2006 to September 2007, covering all five regional states. With new funding, the service has resumed, covering Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan.)
