Uzbek Appeals Court Upholds Sentence on Journalist
Uzbek Appeals Court Upholds Sentence on Journalist
The decision was made on September 11, when the Samarkand provincial court reviewed Sayid’s appeal.
The journalist, who is also a member of the Ezgulik human rights group, was convicted on July 31 under two criminal code articles covering extortion and forgery. (For a report on this, see Uzbek Journalist Given 12-Year Jail Term, 31-Jul-09.) He is suffering from acute tuberculosis.
Fellow-journalists say they do not believe Sayid is guilty, and argue that the authorities fabricated the charges against him because of his critical reporting. Until his arrest, he was one of the few journalists who had not either left Uzbekistan or ended up in jail, and who continued to write the truth, they say.
Ruhiddin Komilov, who defended Sayid in the original trial and is now assisting the lawyer handling his appeal, says the case amounted to “revenge” for Sayid’s reports on the problems faced by farmers around Samarkand.
During the trial, two prosecution witnesses – one of whom was the alleged victim of extortion – withdrew their testimony.
Some were hoping against hope that the court of appeal would act fairly and overturn the verdict.
A Tashkent-based journalist noted that when Janez Lenarcic, head of the OSCE’s Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, visited Uzbekistan on September 8, he said Uzbekistan’s progress in implementing some of its human rights commitments was “encouraging”.
“I expected that after this statement, the court of appeal would acquit Sayid or at least reduce his sentence,” said the journalist.
Yelena Urlaeva of the Tashkent-based Human Rights Alliance of Uzbekistan says the appeals court’s decision shows that journalists cannot expect to be allowed any freedom of expression.
“Cases where journalists have been sentenced to long prison terms, with psychological pressure exerted on them and their families, have become more frequent recently, always with the same aim of silencing them,” said Urlaeva.
Uzbekistan is repeatedly criticised by international institutions for curtailing freedom of speech and persecuting journalists. The Reporters Without Borders group lists it in 162nd place, close to the bottom of its Freedom of Speech Index. The International Press Institute, meanwhile, includes Uzbekistan on its list of countries where journalists are under pressure.
(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.)
