Hugh Williamson, Abdulaziz Komilov and Steve Swerdlow

APPEAL

April 30, 2019, Paris, France

To the President of the Republic of Uzbekistan

Mr. Shavkat MIRZIYOYEV

Mr. Shavkat Miromonovich,

I, Mutabar Tadjibayeva, a human rights activist and former political prisoner of Uzbekistan, urge you to freeze consideration of the issue of accreditation in the country of the representation of the human rights organization Human Rights Watch and its representative in Central Asia, Steve Swerdlow.

This question should be deferred until the Human Rights Watch does not conduct an internal investigation regarding the employees responsible for Uzbekistan, and takes appropriate measures against them and does not bring a public apology to the people of Uzbekistan.

I and many of my colleagues went through prisons, torture and harassment in the name of protecting human rights and truth in Uzbekistan. Some of our comrades paid for it with their lives.

Regarding above said, I consider it unacceptable that international human rights defenders, who have not experienced the hurdles of defending human rights, have resorted to lies and fakes in their reports on the situation in Uzbekistan.

With all the responsibility, I declare that the work of Human Rights Watch for at least the past five years has had a negative impact on civil society and the country’s human rights movement.

Human Rights Watch and its representatives in Central Asia, Hugh Williamson and Steve Swerdlow, “legitimized” the lie in human rights protection, as well as impunity and hypocrisy. An “organized human rights group” was created, where mutual responsibility exists, but there is no main thing – the search for truth, the service of truth.

All my attempts over the course of several years to draw the attention of Steve Swerdlow to lies have not led to success. As a result, I had the conviction that it was a deliberate lie and a conscious covering up of the lies of others.

In 2016, Human Rights Watch and partners deliberately issued a radiologist from Azerbaijan for an “independent forensic expert” when they called upon the Uzbek authorities to investigate the death under torture in Bukhara of businessman Ilkhom Ibodov. He died in the dungeons of the National Security Service on September 13, 2015.

In the 2014 World Report, Human Rights Watch “laundered” the past of its close colleague Nadejda Atayeva, president of the Association for Human Rights in Central Asia, unreasonably stating that her conviction for corruption by the Tashkent City Court in 2013 was based on “trumped-up charges”.

Human Rights Watch continued its collaboration with Atayeva, despite the revelation of the latest evidence in the fabrication of the Andijan massacre on May 13, 2005. When she issued a teacher from Kokand for the “pathologist”, the victim of Andijan and the witness of “extrajudicial executions” in Uzbekistan.

I believe that Human Rights Watch and its representatives do not have the right to teach Uzbekistan human rights, their presence, on the contrary, corrupts and corrupts the country’s human rights defenders.

I urge the government in Uzbekistan under your leadership, Shavkat Miromonovich, to become a conductor for the protection of human rights, the rule of law in the country, so that no charlatans and rogues come to teach us about human rights.

Kind regards,

Mutabar Tadjibayeva,

President IAHR “Fiery Hearts Club”