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By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Peter Zirnite

NEW YORK, May 13 1996 (IPS) - Once treated like “enemies of the people,” international human rights monitors are now receiving the red-carpet treatment from the authoritarian Uzbekistan government, Human Rights Watch/Helsinki reports.

Unfortunately, the diplomatic “thaw” that has occurred over the past 18 months has so far produced “almost no tangible improvements” in Toshkent’s human rights performance, according to an HRWH report released Monday.

The most frequent victims of the arbitrary arrests, disappearances and other abuses that have continued despite the government’s increased receptivity to human rights concerns, HRWH says, are members of the “independent Islamic community” in the capital, Toshkent, and the major cities of the Farghona Valley.

Muslims, however, aren’t the only victims.

The 43-page report — ‘Uzbekistan: Persistent Human Rights Violations and Prospects for Improvement’ — says the continued suspension of basic civil liberties, such as the freedom of speech and assembly, have created a “generally repressive atmosphere that pervades many aspects of life.”

“For two and a half years, our representatives were banned or expelled from the country, our letters of concern went unanswered, requested for meetings with government officials were ignored, and we were lambasted in the Uzbek press as ‘enemies of the people,”‘ said Holly Cartner, HRWH executive director.

“Since last year, however, the red carpet has been out for us,” she added, noting that the government has expressed support for her organisation to open a regional office in the country.

The “atmosphere of cooperation” that the government has created, however, does not extend to indigenous human rights activists, whom HRWH says are treated “notably harsh” or with indifference.

This exception did not stop Human Rights Watch from hailing the Uzbek government for “opening the door to human rights improvements.” Since gaining independence from the Soviet Union four year ago, the group notes, Toshkent dismissed human rights concerns as “interference in the internal affairs of the country.”

“The government’s change in public attitude toward the human rights dialogue was unthinkable only two years ago,” Cartner said.

She added that HRWH released its report — ‘Uzbekistan: Persistent Human Rights Violations and Prospects for Improvement’ — at this time “to take advantage of the crack in the door and to push the opening wider into this otherwise relatively closed society.”

“Despite the government’s improved receptivity to human rights concerns since 1994, there may be more prisoners of conscience today than there were at the beginning of the diplomatic ‘thaw,”‘ HRWH reports. “That rise is explained in large part by law enforcement and local authorities’ crack down on leading members of the independent Islamic community.”

According to HRWH, Muslims, overwhelmingly men, “are arbitrarily taken in for questioning and intimidated, and often detained for several days without charges … for minor acts of perceived insubordination or independence.”

Muslims, HRWH says, are being harassed and detained for as little as wearing a beard and “failing to praise or praise sufficiently the government in their prayers.”

The report cites the arrest of five Muslim men who were charged with “betrayal of the motherland” as they attempted to travel to Afghanistan to “attend an institution of higher Islamic learning,” before making a pilgrimage to Mecca. All five were convicted and sentenced to prison terms ranging from five to ten years.

Repression of Muslims who attend non-state mosques and religious schools stems from government concerns about “militant influences” from Islamic fundamentalists in neighboring Afghanistan and Tajikistan, according to the report.

“The government has sent a clear message of intolerance for anything but explicit loyalty to state-rum Islam,” the reports says. It points out that the crackdown has resulted in the banning of Islamic political parties and the disappearance of top religious leaders.

In response to its findings, Human Rights Watch called on the Ministry of Internal Affairs to “cease immediately harassment, surveillance, and wire-tapping of peaceful citizens” and to “institute internal investigations into allegations of policemen planting drugs and weapons on individuals.”

Improvements the government has made so far, according to HRWH, are largely a result of its need to attract foreign investment and aid.

“Most dramatic and, in the short term, successful in opening the door to human rights improvements,” the report notes, “has been the government’s efforts … to reach out to other governments and international investors and cultivate an atmosphere of cooperation.”

HRHW officials say they have painted a “far bleaker picture of the state of human rights” than other international observers who have traveled to Uzbekistan at the behest of the government — including a European Union monitor — because they have no financial interest in the country.