On November 16, prisoner Tavakkal Hodzhiev, 36 -year-old witness of the Andijan events, was tortured to death in Navoi prison. One month ago in Zarafshan prison, another prisoner, 35-year-old Samariddin Salokhiddinov, convicted on religious grounds, also died due to tortures.

On November 18, the public became aware of the fact that in Navoi colony 64/47 a 36 -year-old prisoner Tavakkal Hodzhiev, who was convicted on charges of involvement in the Andijan events, passed away.

The prison administration told the relatives that Hodzhiev died on November 15 because of a heart attack. However, relatives of the deceased living in Bogishamol neighborhood of Andijan city, where Hodzhiev’s body was delivered early in the morning on November 16, convinced that he died from the use of brutal torture against him.

According to Hodzhiev’s relatives, seventy days ago before his death, his mother and his wife visited him in prison, and when they met with him, he looked healthy.

– The body of my brother was brought home to us by Uzbek security services. They controlled the process of washing the body and no one was allowed enter there. Only my mother was allowed to go and say goodbye to him, but they only showed her my brother’s face, and she was not allowed to see his whole body. They feared that the mother would see traces of severe torture on Tavakkal’s body, – said Dilshod Hodzhiev, older brother of the deceased now residing in Sweden as a refugee, in a telephone conversation with Mutabar Tajibaeva, head of an international human rights organization “Fiery Hearts Club”.

In 2005, during bloody Andijan events, Tavakkal Hodzhiev was on Babur Square in Andijan city and called people not to leave the rally near the city’s administration building, after he was a chairman of the refugee camp built for Andijani refugees in southern Kyrgyzstan.

Later Kyrgyzstan handed four Uzbek refugees to Tashkent – Tavakkal and Dilshod Hodzhievs among them. In order to have his elder brother released, Tavakkal had to participate in a “theatrical performance” of the Uzbek authorities. As a result Dilshod Hodzhiev was released and was soon able to leave Uzbekistan and seek asylum in Europe.

It must be noted that in connection with Andijan events two other brothers of Tavakkal Hodzhieva, 40-year-old Ikrom and 38-year-old Ilkhom, are also serving long prison terms in the colonies in Almalik and Karshi of Uzbekistan.

– They are tortured everyday on regular basis. In particular, they are tortured with electric shocks, they put plastic bags on their heads to suffocate them, extinguish cigarettes on their body, pull their nails off, burn their genitals, – says Dilshid Hodzhiev.

Human rights activists believe that Tavakkal Hodzhiev was killed by prison administration because of his written appeal to senior officials of Uzbekistan, which he was able to pass through his relatives two months ago.

In his letter, Tavakkal Hodzhiev writes about lawlessness in prison, gives the names of prison officers who tortured, extorted money and killed prisoners.

“… in prison #64/47, a group of criminals led by Captain Habib Atoyev, wearing police uniforms, commit their dirty crimes,” Tavakkal wrote in his appeal.

At the end of his appeal, Tavakkal Hodzhiev writes that instead of punishing criminals in uniforms, the Uzbek government rewards them with prizes and increases in rank.

It is possible that in the last month several prisoners died in Uzbek prisons from severe torture, but the public has learned the names of only two of them – Tavakkal Hodzhiev and Samariddin Salohiddinov.

About the death of Samaridding Salohiddinov, political prisoner who died of torture, we learned from Surat Ikramov, chairman of the Initiative Group of Independent Human Rights Defenders of Uzbekistan, on October 21. According to him, in the evening of that day, law enforcement officials brought dead body of Samariddin Salohiddinov from Zarafshan colony #64/48 to his family house in Tashkent.

– In the morning of October 22, on the order of the police, he was buried in a nearby cemetery “Zah Arik” in Tashkent. After his funeral, I talked to the close relatives of the deceased, who confirmed that Samariddin died of severe torture, his arms and legs were broken and his skull was swollen, his body was disfigured, – told Surat Ikramov to reporters.

According to him, Samariddin Salohiddinov was arrested in Tashkent on September 8, 1999, on suspicion of membership in a religious party “Hizb ut-Tahrir”, whose activities are banned in Uzbekistan.

Later he was charged under several articles of the Criminal Code of Uzbekistan, and the judge of Sirdarya Regional Criminal Court sentenced him to 17 years of imprisonment.

According Ikramov, most of his sentence Samariddin Salohiddinov served in a notoriously known penal colony #64/71, located in Zhaslyk village of Karakalpakstan.

– From the archives we learned that Samariddin Salohiddinov graduated from high school with honors, he entered the theological institution “Imam al- Bahariy”, which he also finished with honors in 1999. During the trial, his guilt was not proved, and during the investigation Samariddin was brutally tortured to get confession out of him, – said Surat Ikramov.

According to the Initiative Group of Independent Human Rights Defenders of Uzbekistan, each year about 250 prisoners dies from various diseases and torture in prisons of Uzbekistan. However, the authorities try to keep this information from public.

On October 2013, in Geneva, the UN Committee against Torture considered the report of the delegation of Uzbekistan on the implementation of the UN Convention, which prohibits torture. Replying to the statement of the Committee of Experts that torture in Uzbekistan is systematic and widespread, the head of the Uzbek delegation Akmal Saidov said without shame or compunction that “the law of the country prohibits torture and therefore none of Uzbek officials dare not break this law.”

Sofiya DAVRONOVA