Uzbek dissident says was tortured in prison

Record ID: 355953

  • Title: Uzbek dissident says was tortured in prison
  • Date: 3rd March 2017
  • Summary: PICTURE ON WALL
  • Embargoed: 17th March 2017 12:39
  • Keywords: Uzbekistan political prisonner Muhammad Bekjanov opposition Uzbek journalist human rights
  • Location: KHIVA AND YANGIZABAR, UZBEKISTAN
  • City: KHIVA AND YANGIZABAR, UZBEKISTAN
  • Country: Uzbekistan
  • Topics: Crime/Law/Justice
  • Reuters ID: LVA00266EM2IV
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: Having faced physical and psychological torture during his 18-year prison term, Uzbek dissident journalist Muhammad Bekjanov says support from human rights groups and media kept him going until his release last month.
    Bekjanov, 63, a former editor of the opposition newspaper Erk, was sentenced to 15 years in prison in 1999 on charges of publishing and distributing a banned newspaper, participating in a banned political protest, and plotting a coup.
    He had always denied the charges, which rights groups branded as politically motivated. Bekjanov's term was first reduced so that he could be freed in 2012, but then extended by another five years.
    He attributed his release to the change of leadership in Tashkent following the death of President Islam Karimov who had run the Central Asian nation for 27 years.
    Bekjanov's brother, Muhammad Salih, the leader of the Erk party, was a presidential candidate in 1991 and has lived in exile since 1993. In 1999 he was convicted in absentia on terrorism charges, which he denied.
    Karimov died from a stroke last September and has been succeeded by his former prime minister, Shavkat Mirziyoyev, who has overseen the release of several high-profile political prisoners.
    "If the old leadership had stayed in place, I would certainly have had a new five-year extra term handed down to me," Bekjanov said.
    Shortly after Karimov's death, he said, "everyone started treating me differently. Even regular inmates (not political prisoners) approached and talked to me. Then I felt that there were some new directives from above."
    Bekjanov said he had been tortured, physically and psychologically, in the first few years of his term, until the Red Cross resumed visits to Uzbek prisons in 2003.
    "Once I was put in solitary confinement for more than six months," he said. "I even forgot the names of my daughters then."
    "The most difficult time was when I had been extradited from Ukraine and put in in the Jaslyk prison where my legs were broken, my ears became deaf."
    Bekjanov said international support had kept him going.
    "Lots of journalists from around the world and human rights organizations kept contacting me while I was in jail," he said.
    "After the first three years in prison I started receiving letters and postcards from them. My relatives told me what was going on around me out there when they visited me. These all gave me spiritual strength."
    Asked if he saw his release as a sign of a political thaw, Bakjanov said:
    "There are other dissidents, journalists, rights defenders and opposition members still in prisons; we could talk about political changes if they are all set free."
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