To Ms.Eija Pitkänen, Vice President of “TeliaSonera”.

Madam Eija Pitkänen,

International Human Rights Association “Fiery Hearts Club” expresses its appreciation that you responded to our appeal on behalf of “TeliaSonera”. We welcome the fact that “TeliaSonera” became one of the participants in the Industry Dialogue that collaborates with the Global Network Initiative. We are grateful that you make sure that our organization will be one of the groups the efforts of the Industry Dialogue are directed to.

“Fiery Hearts Club” sincerely welcomes the goodwill of management of the company, which turned its attention to human rights and focused on the corruption component in the activities of “TeliaSonera”. We very much hope that the ongoing group anti-corruption policy of “Telia Sonera” will affect not only European companies, but also companies located in the former Soviet Union countries. We would also expect that the outcome of anti-corruption policies will be available to the general public.

However, we strongly ask you to pay attention to the Article 12 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states that “No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honor and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.” Also, national legislation in the post-Soviet countries specifically state that: “Every person has the right to personal liberty and security. No one may be arrested or detained except on grounds provided by law.”

In reality, the situation is very hard-hitting. Law enforcement agencies and special services of authoritarian post-Soviet countries, without any criminal case against a citizen, can freely receive the personal information of the subscriber from the mobile operators. This practice is widely used in Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Azerbaijan, Belarus. In connection with this circumstance, we would ask you to pay special attention to this problem, as it leads to a violation of both national and international laws.

Ms. Eija Pitkänen, in our letter sent on July 1, 2013 to the head “TeliaSonera” Ms. Marie Ehrling, we wrote that “… in authoritarian regimes, such as Azerbaijan, Belarus and Uzbekistan, violation of human rights is particularly relevant and is of a systematic nature. In this regard, we would ask you to consider the perspectives of cooperation and support to those NGOs that highlight and address the human rights violations in these countries…”

We are very far from thinking to wrongly blame anyone for any suspicious transactions or financial manipulations. Our organization adheres to the presumption of innocence – one of the core democratic principles of justice, according to which the accused is presumed innocent as long as their guilt be proved and established in accordance with law – we just state the facts, published in the international media.

When addressing the management of “TeliaSonera”, International Human Rights Association “Fiery Hearts Club” only recommended your company to implement joint social projects with representatives of civil society organizations that deal with human rights issues in post-Soviet countries (Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Azerbaijan and Belarus). We were very far from the desire to implement a joint project with Ucell, which is a tool for total control over the citizens in the hands of the authoritarian regime of Uzbekistan.

In this regard, we would ask you to be more careful in reviewing the incoming correspondence.

You are probably informed about the events happened in Uzbekistan on July 17, 2012, when nearly ten million mobile subscribers of MTS-Uzbekistan suddenly lost access to mobile connection and Internet. We will not go into the details of this lawlessness of Uzbek authorities, too much was said and written about it. We would like to draw your attention to the fact that, despite the substantial increase of subscribers of Ucell, the quality of services the company provides has deteriorated significantly.

According to our colleagues from Uzbekistan, the human rights situation there is deteriorating. The situation in the country will be even more complicated if international organizations and the community do not make a solid intervention. One of the latest evidence of lawlessness Uzbek authorities is the arrest of independent Uzbek journalist Sergei Naumov. (For more details visit http://www.hrw.org/news/2013/09/24/uzbekistan-journalist-forcibly-disappeared) We can bring many examples of this kind.

International Human Rights Association “Fiery Hearts Club” hopes that the current leadership of the telecommunications company “TeliaSonera” will try to do everything to ensure that their subsidiaries in authoritarian countries would not be tools in the hands of the intelligence agencies.

Sincerely,

Mutabar Tadjibayeva,

Head of the International
Human Rights Association
“Fiery Hearts Club”
October 1, 2013
France

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