In the first days of June 2014 different mass media around the world incorrectly reported that under the latest annual amnesty act in Uzbekistan adopted on December 5, 2013 the Uzbek government released 69,5 thousand inmates from prisons.

For example, see the following links for such incorrect statements:  http://www.12news.uz/news/2014/06/02/акт-амнистии-в-узбекистане-применили/, http://lenta.ru/news/2014/06/03/amnesty/or http://easttime.ru/news/uzbekistan/v-uzbekistane-amnistirovali-pochti-70-tysyach-zaklyuchennykh/7197.

This news has become sensational and was widely republished by other mass media and discussed on social networks thus creating a wrong perception of the implementation of the amnesty acts in Uzbekistan. Therefore we are making the following comments on the incorrect understanding of the implementation of the latest amnesty act in Uzbekistan.

Each year the Senate of the Uzbek parliament adopts amnesty acts. According to the annual amnesty acts, Law “On Public Prosecutor’s Office”, Penal Code of Uzbekistan the annual amnesty acts are applied in the following ways:

– Drop criminal punishment of a person already found guilty by the court;

– Transfer an inmate who is already serving his / her prison term from high security prison facility to a low security prison facility;

– Dropping a criminal case during pre-trial investigation and trial periods;

– Shortening the part of the prison term which the inmate hasn’t served yet.

The above mentioned incorrect statements on the implementation of the latest amnesty act in Uzbekistan was prompted by a recent meeting in the Office of the Uzbekistani Prosecutor General dedicated to the analysis of the results of the latest amnesty act in the country. This special meeting took place on May 30, 2014 in Tashkent. Following the meeting the Office of the Prosecutor General of Uzbekistan has, as usual, made pompous and dubious statements describing the results of the implementation of the latest amnesty act which brought to a gross misinterpretation by journalists and general public and resulted in a conclusion that the Uzbek authorities have released almost 70 thousand inmates from prisons after December 2013. This, of course, cannot be true because 70 thousand inmates would almost mean the entire prison population of the country and the Uzbek authorities won’t of course release all inmates from prison at the same time.

In fact, the latest amnesty act covered 69,5 thousand persons in total. According to the Office of the Uzbek Prosecutor General for about 43 thousand out of those 69,5 thousand persons covered by the latest amnesty act the criminal punishment already set in the court guilty sentence was dropped and / or criminal cases were dropped during pre-trial investigation and trial period before the courts passed their sentences. So that means at least 43 thousand out of those 69,5 thousand amnestied persons were not inmates at all and they were not held in prisons.

The Office of Prosecutor General in fact mentions the total number of inmates out of 69,5 thousand persons who have already been convicted and held in prisons and persons held under pre-trial investigation arrest in pre-trial custodies – 3.23 thousand persons. So, the true number of persons released from the Uzbek prisons and custodies as a result of the latest amnesty act is not 69,5 thousand but 3,23 thousand persons.

Describing true numbers of persons affected by annual amnesty acts we should also be careful with the issue of how the Uzbek authorities treat political prisoners in the context of amnesty acts.

In most cases of political prisoners (for instance, imprisoned civil society activists and religious prisoners) the prison authorities place them into a solitary confinement and charged them with disobeying prison internal rules on purpose in order to prolong his imprisonment and keep him in prison a longer period. This is a common method the Uzbek authorities “neutralize” these categories of prisoners and keep them in prison for lengthy periods. Many well-known cases of other Uzbek human rights activists who are kept in prison for lengthy periods have been well studied and reported. By putting the inmate to a solitary confinement and charging with disobeying prison internal rules the Uzbek authorities are also blocking his eligibility for annual amnesty acts.

Under the existing Uzbek legislation the inmates who have been put to a solitary confinement and charged with violating prison internal rules are not eligible for annual amnesty acts. The cases of prolongation of already existing prison sentences under trumped up new criminal cases based on the charges of disobeying prison internal rules is almost unstudied – because the pre-trial investigations and court hearings take place swiftly in several weeks, most of the times inside prison facilities, inmates and their family members don’t have often enough time to hire the lawyers of their own choice.

The court hearings on such new criminal cases take place inside prison facilities which makes it almost impossible for the family members and independent observers to attend the trial. In most cases the inmates, their lawyers and family members do not have access to the documents of the new trumped up criminal cases, including the final sentences on prolongation of prison terms.

The prison administrations in Uzbekistan trump up against political prisoners criminal charges of violation of the prison internal rules under Article 221 of the Criminal Code in advance of the adoption of annual amnesty acts. In doing so they often rely on a secret list of political prisoners referred to them by the central apparatus of the Ministry of the Interior and the National Security Service who order the prison administrations to trump new criminal charges against political prisoners and thus make them ineligible for annual amnesty acts.

In falsification of new charges against political prisoners the prison administrations use all available means, including torture, depriving meetings with family members, provoking the political prisoners with the help of inmates who cooperate with the prison administration to commit violation of prison internal rules. The process of trumping up new criminal charges against political prisoners is called in a prison jargon “terror”.

We call on colleagues, journalists and international interlocutors of the Uzbek government to take any statements regarding the prison situation in Uzbekistan, including the process of implementation of annual amnesty acts with a serious cautious.

Sincerely,

Mutabar Tadjibayeva

Head of International Human Rights Association
“Fiery Hearts Club”