Uzbek Authorities Pressure Journalists

The Uzbek authorities have begun the year with an attempt to intimidate independent journalists into silence.



On January 14, the Central Asia news agency Ferghana.ru reported that Bahrom Nurmatov, deputy chief prosecutor in the capital Tashkent, had summoned six freelance reporters for questioning the previous week.



Two of them refused to appear before Nurmatov, saying they had not been formally requested to do so.



“In the prosecutor’s office, they showed each journalist a file containing articles and reports by him or her, a detailed life history and other documents,” said the Ferghana.ru report. “The deputy prosecutor said he had obtained this material from the National Security Service and the Uzbek foreign ministry.”



The journalists said afterwards that Nurmatov questioned them about foreign media outlets they might have worked for, and about whether they received money from abroad or travelled to international conferences. He also referred to personal details and to pseudonyms under which they wrote.



One of those questioned, Sid Yanyshev, said Nurmatov told him, “People here think your articles are biased, unobjective, and insulting towards the national leadership authorities.”



Reporter Alexei Volosevich, who was called in on January 8, a day after the others, had a similar experience to them.



“Nurmatov was interested in roughly the same things – what pseudonyms I write under, whether I’d traveled abroad, and whether I had cooperated with Uznews.net and IWPR. They seem to regard these two media outlets as the worst.”



NBCentral Asia observers say the Uzbek secret service appears to be increasingly alarmed about the growth of online journalism and the availability of uncensored reports about Uzbekistan, in a country where domestic media are under tight control.



“There are several journalists in Uzbekistan who continue writing articles for websites, despite the risk to their lives,” said a reporter for the Uzbek service of RFE/RL radio. “Independent information is coming out of Uzbekistan even now, in spite of the tighter control exerted by the authorities. There are about seven million Uzbek migrants [abroad] who regularly read online material, comment in forums, and voice criticism. The authorities are afraid that people who are outside Uzbekistan are well-informed…. Hence the pressure on journalists who pass on this kind of information.”



Volosevich agrees that the authorities fear the increasing role played by electronic media.



“I can’t remember when so many journalists were questioned at the one time in Uzbekistan,” he said.



A local media-watcher said internet publishing was becoming ever more popular in Uzbekistan. “Since you can’t sack an online journalist or put the screws on his employer to make him stop doing things that displease the authorities, there’s only one tool left – intimidation.”



Tashpulat Yoldashev, an Uzbek political analyst based abroad, says the “informal chats” arranged by the prosecution service are intended as clear warnings.



“The government believes that the convincing truth that is now published about Uzbekistan on the internet discredits everything it says, and it is unable to fight back in this information war,” he said. “Coercive methods are likely to be applied against those who write this material.”



A reporter from northern Uzbekistan expressed fear that such persecution might go unnoticed in the current international climate.



“The authorities have chosen a fortuitous moment to launch a campaign to suppress journalists,” he said. “Both West and East are, for their different reasons, being supportive of Tashkent.”



In October, the European Union dropped the last of the sanctions it imposed on Uzbekistan after the 2005 bloodshed in Andijan.



In a statement, the EU said the decision was taken “with a view to encourage the Uzbek authorities to take further substantive steps to improve the rule of law and the human rights situation on the ground, and taking into account their commitments”.



Commentators to whom NBCentralAsia spoke at the time said the move was more likely to bolster the regime’s sense of impunity than encourage better human rights observance.