Uzbekistan: Reporter Detained for Covering Refugee Story
Uzbekistan: Reporter Detained for Covering Refugee Story
Police in eastern Uzbekistan detained a Tashkent-based journalist for two days after he tried to report on the tens of thousands of refugees who have sought sanctuary in the region.
The authorities have created temporary accommodation for at least 80,000 ethnic Uzbeks who crossed the border to flee days of violence in southern Kyrgyzstan.
Alexei Volosevich who works for the Russia-based online news agency Fergana.ru and other foreign media, was picked up on June 13 near the village of Yor-Qishloq, the location of four of the refugee camps. He was filming buses bringing new refugees in when he was detained by police.
The reason they gave was that he had no ID on him, as a colleague had his bag at the time, containing his documents.
He was fingerprinted and then held for two-and-a-half days in a stuffy cage, along with five refugees from Kyrgyzstan detained for not having identity papers. Volosevich said their were given only bread and water.
His colleague brought his passport in on the morning of June 15, but police refused to release him until they found out whether he had any past convictions or was on the wanted list. They requested this information from the police department in the area of Tashkent where Volosevich is registered as a resident, and only after receiving it did they release him on the afternoon of June 16.
“I’m certain I was arrested only because I’m a journalist and I was filming a bus carrying refugees on the road,” he said immediately afterwards. “The police chief confiscated my video camera, voice recorder and mobile phone, but they’ve now been returned to me now.”
Volosevich’s colleagues believe he was held in detention quite deliberately, as punishment for his past reporting and a deterrent to his continuing.
“They knew perfectly well who they had. They simply don’t want him to write anything,” said a journalist from Tashkent who did not want to give his name.
In January, Volosevich and other journalists based in Tashkent were questioned by the prosecution service. Volosevich said he was shown his file and a collection of articles he had written. At around the time, other attacks on press freedom took place – the arrest of sports journalist Khairullo Hamidov, who was subsequently jailed; and legal action against photographer Umida Ahmedova, whose images were deemed an offence to the Uzbek nation.
This article was produced as part of IWPR’s News Briefing Central Asia output, funded by the National Endowment for Democracy.
