Will Damning Human Rights Report Effect Change?

Although Tashkent has vehemently rejected the findings of the US State Department’s annual report on human rights in Uzbekistan, human rights activists believe the Uzbek authorities are more sensitive to criticism than in previous years.



On March 14, US ambassador Jon Purnell presented the government with the State Department’s annual report on human rights in Uzbekistan for 2006. The report is damning, saying that the human rights situation continues to deteriorate and citing such violations such as the torture of detainees by law-enforcement officers, the incarceration of regime critics and human rights activists in mental hospitals, the persecution of independent journalists, and appalling prison conditions.



The day before it was formally presented, Uzbekistan’s foreign ministry denounced the report as “prejudiced and unfair”, just as it did last year. The ministry said the State Department’s activity in this area was “tendentious and counter-productive”.



Otanazar Oripov, who heads the human rights group Mazlum (The Oppressed), said the official reaction showed the Uzbek government was still unwilling to take criticism.



“Frankly speaking, the report has no real effect on politics in Uzbekistan, because the [authorities] do not acknowledge its findings, the cases it cites, or its recommendations.”



Other human rights activists argue, however, that Uzbek officials may not be as dismissive of criticism from abroad this year as they have been in the past.



Surat Ikramov, head of the Initiative Group of Human Rights Defenders, Tashkent may be more willing to listen now that it has strengthened ties with the European Union.



“Uzbekistan is now under the scrutiny of the European Union. In May 2007, the EU will review the human rights situation with a view to lifting the sanctions against Uzbekistan which were first imposed at the end of 2005,” he said.



Ikramov said Tashkent now senses that it is under international scrutiny in the wake of the 2005 Andijan massacre, and he believes that the authorities will be forced to come to terms with this even though it is an irritant.



Vasila Inoyatova, head of the Ezgulik human rights group, also expressed hope that this time, the government will address the issues raised in the US report.



Meanwhile, Yelena Urlaeva, head of the non-government Centre for Public Supervision of Law-Enforcement, suggested that the harsher the criticism contained in this kind of report, the more motivated the authorities would be to change their human rights policy.



“I think it will contribute to improving the human rights situation in Uzbekistan,” she said. “It’s all to the good, since it represents a kind of scrutiny. I think that the more critical the report is, the more the authorities will take it into account, so that something changes.”



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