Yet another Uzbek refugee, Khairullo Tursunov, extradited from Kazakhstan to Uzbekistan, is sentenced to many years in prison.

Tursunov was exstradited from Almaty to Tashkent on March 13, 2013.

In early June 2013, 38-year-old Uzbek refugee Khairullo Tursunov was sentenced to twelve years in prison for “conducting extremist religious activities.” Jarayon was informed about it on June 26 from Tursunov’s relatives living outside Uzbekistan.

The years of independence in Uzbekistan have seen many cases of illegal arrests, beatings, torture, and unfair trials, and the victims were not only the critics and opponents of the regime of president Islam Karimov, but also thousands of innocent Muslim believers.

Many Uzbek Muslims, including women, were sentenced to many years in prison for so-called membership in the banned religious organizations in the country. Although, many local and international organizations declare the innocence of these people, and that the charges against them were fabricated by the Uzbek authorities.

On June 21, during his trip to the Jizzak region of Uzbekistan, president Islam Karimov called Uzbek migrant workers, working in Russia, “lazy people”, and the fact of their presence in the labor migration was “disgusting and humiliating for the Uzbek people”.

Karimov, who said “no one in Uzbekistan is dying of hunger,” also added that “those, who went to Russia to earn money fast, are lazy, because they want to earn a lot of money quickly.”

ISTANBUL (29 May, 2013): On 27-28 May, I visited Uzbekistan where I had meetings at the ministerial level with State authorities, top justice officials and representatives of the international community and civil society. The level of interlocutors I met while in Tashkent and the quality of discussions indicates a window of opportunity to strengthen cooperation.

While some progress has been made, a number of serious human rights concerns remain in Uzbekistan, including torture, arbitrary detention, the lack of freedom of expression, association and peaceful assembly, the harassment of civil society, journalists and opposition, as well as forced labour. All of these, as well as a number of other issues, were discussed in a constructive spirit, informed by the recommendations of the UN human rights mechanisms.

The bloody events of June 10-14, 2010, happened in Osh and Jalalabad, southern regions of Kyrgyzstan, by their cruelty and ruthlessness, definitely entered the history of inhuman events of our time.

During those days, hundreds of people, including infants, children, women and old people, were killed based on their ethnic backgrounds. Modern humanity has witnessed the burning people alive. In the era of globalization and informationalism, all these atrocities, genetically not inherent to the normal person, were recorded on millions of digital data holders, and were shown globally.

International human rights organization “Fiery Hearts Club” is closely following the recent developments around the activities of the Swedish telecom giant TeliaSonera in Uzbekistan.

Recently, in late May, the Swedish public television aired a new documentary film about the corrupt cooperation of TeliaSonera with the eldest daughter of Islam Karimov – Gulnara Karimova, and the pro-government structures of Uzbekistan.