Dear Mr.Eric Bertinat,

On behalf of the international human rights organization “Fiery Hearts Club” let us express our respect and appreciation for your political activities in the Swiss People’s Party.

On April 24, 2013, independent Internet publications have published information about your appeal to the authorities of Geneva to investigate the origin of funds of the Kazakh fugitive official Viktor Khrapunov. Given the fact that Viktor and Leila Khrapunovs are wanted by Interpol on the request of Kazakhstan, where they are accused of committing a series of crimes, your appeal is timely and very important.

In the beginning of the year, people sick with AIDS were forced to flee from several districts of Karakalpakstan, autonomous republic in Uzbekistan.

The efforts of the state funded medicine in treating of people sick with AIDS are clashing with mentality of the local population and outright indifference of the authorities.

– We are believed to be lepers, – says Gul Azhiniyazova, resident of the 23th neighborhood of Nukus city. – But I’m not to blame for this disease. My husband came from Kazakhstan and brought the infection into our home. I had a gynecological disease and passed the tests. That’s how I learned of the terrible sickness. Then they checked my husband. We were promised they would hide it in secret, but neighbors quickly learned about it. I had to go to neighboring Khorezm city. Now we are planning to move to Tashkent.

In Uzbekistan, the country’s citizens, who have a residence permit in another country, are not allowed to live with their relatives.

According to 60-year-old resident of capital city Tashkent, Nadir Lazizov, Uzbek officials are not allowing his daughter Samina, who came last month from Almaty to Tashkent to see her parents, to live in his house. The reason for this, according to Lazizov, was the fact that his daughter has a residence permit in Kazakhstan.

By Hugh Williamson and Steve Swerdlow

Eight years after the Andijan massacre, Uzbekistan remains a human-rights disaster. When will the EU change its strategy towards Uzbekistan?

Eight years have passed since one of the worst massacres in the former Soviet Union. On 13 May 2005, security forces in the city of Andijan, Uzbekistan, opened fire on protesters, the vast majority unarmed, killing hundreds of men, women and children as they tried to flee. No one has been held accountable, and the authoritarian president, Islam Karimov, has defied calls for an independent investigation.

Dear reader!

On April 12, 2012, Yves Daccord, director general of the International Committee of the Red Cross, posted on his Twitter page the news that the committee stopped its work in Uzbek prisons.

Daccord said that the leadership of the committee came to this decision because of the unconstructive attitude of the Uzbek authorities.

Previously, members of this prestigious international organization has met with many of the prisoners in the jails of Uzbekistan, and tried to solve their problems. Of course, this process has not always been easy.

In this regard, “Jarayon” begins publishing a series of materials received from relatives of prisoners, as well as from former prisoners who met in Uzbek prisons with representatives of the Red Cross.

Perhaps these articles will help our readers better understand the reasons for the refusal of ICRC to visit prisons in Uzbekistan…

Bakhtiyar Khamraev, known Uzbek human rights activist, passed away on May 4 after a long lasting illness. The history of his work and his disease can tell about a whole era – about the nature and characteristics of the authoritarian regime in Uzbekistan, the thinking and behavior of Islam Karimov concerning human rights and civil society.

Authoritarianism in Uzbekistan has a clear strategy of exclusion, marginalization and elimination the opposition and civil society in Uzbek society. In this case, the liquidation does not mean a direct physical removal of the activist, but also a systematic and coordinated public policy, in which, the independent and opposition representative in civil society will be forced to either cease activities or the authorities will do anything to put a man out law.

Dear friends, colleagues at the International Federation for Human Rights!

Today, we are writing to you on the sad occasion – Bakhtiyar Khamraev, our close friend in Uzbekistan, a courageous and tireless human rights activist, known to many of you in our common seminars and trips, died on May 4.

FIDH, like many other human rights activists, both Uzbek and international, owe so much to this wonderful and very humble man. Until his last day, even when chained to the bed by brutal and painful illness, he continued helping others – human rights activists in custody and their families, calling them, and when he could – visiting them regularly and sharing with international organizations the information, hardly available from abroad, about the conditions of imprisoned colleagues, about the legal aspects of their protection and the needs of their families – without him our help to dozens of human rights defenders and their relatives would be impossible. His integrity and honesty were the best guarantee that the aid reaches those, who really were in need.

www.frontlinedefenders.org/donate

Bahtiyor Hamraev has been a dedicated campaigner for human rights in Uzbekistan for the last 15 years. He has been head of the Djizak regional branch of the Human Rights Society of Uzbekistan (HRSU) and has documented human rights violations in this region.

In recent years he has become the main contact with families of imprisoned human rights defenders, helping to spread the information about their conditions in detention, the torture and ill-treatment and helping to provide the families with legal aid and financial assistance.

Finalists for 2013 Front Line Defenders Award for human rights defenders at risk

The selection of the finalists for the 2013 Front Line Defenders Award for Human Rights Defenders at Risk has now taken place and the overall winner will be chosen by an independent jury of cross-party Ministers, Parliamentarians and Members of the European Parliament. Having read the 90 nominations- and seen the quality and dedicated commitment of the human rights defenders – it is clear that so many would be a worthy finalist or winner and how impossible the task for the decision makers is. To all who were nominated, let me say on behalf or Front Line Defenders how much you inspire us and how much we value your unrelenting work for the rights of others. If you need support at any time, please contact us.

Many Uzbek farmers complain that they are forced to find work in neighboring countries, as they cannot find justice at home.

“Jarayon” had a chance to interview Uzbek farmer Iskandar, from Uchkoprik district of Ferghana region, who is currently working in Russia.

“First of all, necessity makes to go for this. On the other hand, it has become very hard to make a living doing farming nowadays. It is because farmers are not masters of their crop. My neighbors, who took the land to start farming, constantly complain.