Uzbekistan

On June 20 Saida Kurbanova, head of Pakhtakor district branch (Djizakh region) of the Human Rights Society of Uzbekistan, published a statement reporting about summons to the district police department. Kurbanova was summoned to Pakhtakor district police department on June 02. There she was informed that Nargiza Mirzakobulova, a resident of Djizakh city, has filed a complaint against her and another activist Ziyadulla Razzoqov of Djizakh regional department of the Committee for Protection of Person’s Rights.

"Yusuf is going to die." That’s how Gulnora Juma, the wife of jailed Uzbek poet and political activist Yusuf Juma, summarized Juma’s plight at a recent discussion on Capitol Hill, Washington D.C., the USA, jointly sponsored by Freedom House and the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom on June 22.

Yusuf Juma, who is currently serving a five-year prison sentence in Uzbekistan for “organizing an illegal gathering” to protest the rule of Uzbek ruler Islam Karimov, is regularly subjected to brutal treatment, according to his wife.

With escalation of violence against ethnic Uzbeks in southern Kyrgyzstan, those Kyrgyzstani human rights defenders of Uzbek ethnicity, who were monitoring and documenting the situation fell under great risk of persecutions and attacks by the Kyrgyz authorities.

Human rights defender and ethnic Uzbek, Azimzhan Askarov, was detained on 15 June in southern Kyrgyzstan. It has been reported that he is being tortured, denied medical care and his life is in danger. He is a prisoner of conscience and must be released immediately.