Dear Ms. Marie Ehrling,

Availing myself of this opportunity please let me express my sincere respect to you and your colleagues and wish all the best in 2014. I would be grateful if you find this letter as a continuation of our ongoing communication and dialogue on TeliaSonera’s activities in Uzbekistan and its possible implications on human rights situation in the country.

At the beginning I would like to present to you my several thoughts on the points you and your colleagues have raised in your latest responses to our previous requests for information as there seem to be some serious contradictions in your points.

Stureplan 8106 63, Stockholm,Sweden
ATTN:
Ms. Marie Ehrling,
Chairman of the Board TeliaSonera

Copies:

Eija Pitkänen
Vice President, Head of Sustainability
Email eija.pitkanen@teliasonera.com

Patrik Hiselius
Senior Advisor, Digital Rights
Email patrik.hiselius@teliasonera.com

Henrik Weinestedt
Sustainability Manager
Email henrik.weinestedt@teliasonera.com

Salomon Bekele
Head of Media Relations

It is our impression that TeliaSonera either doesn’t understand well the underlying specifics of the current political situation in Uzbekistan and its implications on the direct foreign investments or has chosen to accept the risks of doing business in Uzbekistan with full understanding of the current political situation in the country. I think in both cases TeliaSonera is prone to similar scandals and pressures by the Uzbekistani authorities which already happened in 2013.

In your earlier responses addressing our concerns about corruption elements in the TeliaSonera – Gulnara Karimova scandal you have stressed the new measures taken by the company, namely the new anti-corruption corporate policy and subsequent training program for the company’s personnel, the ongoing internal investigation, etc. While I praise highly the importance of those measures I would hesitate to call them as being enough to address the 2013 scandal or even prevent similar cases in the future.

Because no matter of the measures taken by TeliaSonera in response to the 2013 scandal the Uzbekistani political regime’s nature hasn’t changed, to the contrary it is most likely that the country is entering a turbulent political period when the existing political elites started openly fighting for power and thus foreign businesses in this Central Asian country has become even more vulnerable to the authorities intervention and pressures than ever before.

In one of your earlier responses you have justified TeliaSonera’s cooperation with the Uzbekistani law enforcement authorities in sharing the client’s electronic data and mobile phone and Internet communications by referring to local laws and license requirements. In particular you stressed that for some countries where TeliaSonera is present the local regulations include the government authorities’ real time direct access for surveillance over clients’ data and activities.

Frankly speaking it was a bit of a shock to us to read such statements. In our perception, such statements do a very bad service as justifications of cooperation with the dictatorship political regimes as Uzbekistan. Your earlier letters mentions further that under such circumstances TeliaSonera is required to find practical ways forward on how to respect human rights. And this later statement caught us by even more surprise as it makes little sense talking about respect to human rights when the company has to follow the host country’s illegal requirements on data sharing for the sake of purely business interests.

If providing the Uzbekistani authorities real time full access to clients’ data without due judicial review is one serious crime both under local and international laws, hundreds of facts of illegal arrests and trumped up criminal cases opened by the local authorities against innocent citizens based on illegal access to the electronic data doubles TeliaSonera’s responsibility and part in this crime. TeliaSonera should keep in mind that in most cases the Uzbekistani authorities use such illegal access to electronic data for illegally wire-tapping communications of the local human rights activists, journalists, opposition members and religious groups. It makes hard to believe TeliaSonera’s statements on priorities of human rights, anticorruption policy, and company’s contribution to freedom of expression and privacy in telecommunications.

And I hope TeliaSonera leadership has a clear understanding that the situation laws and licensing requirements in Uzbekistan hasn’t changed. There are no guarantees that TeliaSonera or any other foreign investor operating in the country won’t become participant of another corruption scandal and forced to follow to illegal requirements with the risk of expropriation or government takeover in case of disobedience in the future. As the last 10 years demonstrated to us such cases are not rare in today’s Uzbekistan. The latest case is the British Tethys Petroleum’s business in Uzbekistan in which the company leadership has recently decided to leave because of unbearable business and political conditions in this country.

If the history of foreign direct investment in Uzbekistan teaches us one lesson it is, unfortunately, the following lesson, at least under the current political regime – TeliaSonera’s compliance with illegal requirements of the Uzbekistani authorities in data sharing won’t stop the authorities one day to decide to stop the company’s business in this country and expropriate its capital. Relying on figures similar Gulnara Karimova or any other representative of the political elite after Gulnara Karimova fell out of power won’t create guarantees.

Therefore, I call on TeliaSonera leadership to take the 2013 scandal more serious and adopt more powerful and effective measures in order to prevent similar problems in the future. One of the components of such effective measures could be saying ‘no’ to the Uzbekistani authorities’ requirements on sharing data. We know that it is not part of the official licensing requirements but comes as unwritten order from the Uzbekistani secret services and law enforcement agencies.

Another possible component of efforts to improve TeliaSonera’s public image in Uzbekistan could be measures to improve the quality of services in this country. While there could be technical reasons to why the service quality of TeliaSonera’s Uzbekistani branch has dramatically deteriorated after the Russian MTS left the local market in 2012 the Uzbek population who uses TeliaSonera’s services are truly embarrassed by the quality of service. The public perception of TeliaSonera’s Uzbekistani branch as a corrupt and monopolistic company is increasing which I think should ring a bell to the company’s leadership.

I would also like to take this opportunity to once again discuss my request to secure TeliaSonera’s support and assistance for the projects of my organization and similar projects focusing on Uzbekistan. In your earlier response you have suggested to address such offers directly to TeliaSonera’s Uzbekistani branch – Ucell. While I understand that such decisions are made solely by corporate donors I indeed believe that TeliaSonera should seriously consider supporting activities of organizations like mine and other similar groups.

In our case addressing our offers directly to Ucell won’t work because the Uzbekistani authorities would certainly oppose any businesses in Uzbekistan to provide any support to independent NGOs, especially human rights groups. Moreover, because of a lack of government registration and any prospects of getting such registration in the coming years my NGO is established and incorporated in France which might prevent Ucell from providing a support to an overseas organization.

My organization has been working for many years on such issues in Uzbekistan as protection of persecuted and harassed civil society activists, fair trial and protection of torture victims, freedom of information and expression, the rights of prisoners, forced child labor, etc. TeliaSonera’s support to our projects in any of the above mentioned projects could have meant a lot in strengthening the company’s commitment to human rights, fighting corruption and freedom of expression and privacy.

I would be grateful if TeliaSonera headquarters considers my request for support itself by not referring it to Ucell Uzbekistan. I am ready to submit a more detailed request for support with specific ideas and implementation plan if necessary.

In any event I understand and respect that the decision is yours and I am behind it.

I will be Stockholm next week and upon your availability would be pleased to meet you and have a discussion.

Thank you in advance for your consideration.

Kind regards,

Mutabar Tadjibayeva

Founder and President
International Human Rights
Association “Fiery Hearts Club”

Paris, France

January 12, 2014