Shukhrat Ganiev, (b. 1959), from Bukhara, is the former head of the Humanitarian-Legal Center, which Uzbek authorities closed in May 2006. The center’s lawyers and physicians worked together to monitor and report torture cases, as well as to raise awareness among schoolchildren about human rights issues and conflict prevention.

Ganiev, a lawyer, became interested in human rights and civic movements when he studied in the then-Ukrainian SSR and Czechoslovakia. “When I spent time abroad I was thrilled by the activities of youth movements. I dreamed of such activities here in Uzbekistan,” he says. When he returned to Uzbekistan in 1992 he convinced friends and colleagues to work on human rights issues. In multiethnic Bukhara, Ganiev focuses on minority rights and societal conflict.

According to Ganiev, one of the forefront problems in Uzbekistan is what he views as the passivity of Uzbek society in general. His work seeks to challenge citizens into action.  “Although my activities sometimes create more problems than advantages for me and my family, I will continue to work.”

Karimov fights against torture in Uzbekistan. He reports incidents of physical torture and allegations of medical malpractice in prisons, including improper administration of injections and other medications that in some cases have caused physical harm to detainees. “I cannot tolerate injustice and want to stop torture,” explains Karimov on his motivation to work.

Abdusalom Ergashev, (b. 1948), from Ferghana city, is the head of the Ferghana province branch of the Independent Human Rights Organization of Uzbekistan.  He works on issues of religious freedom, corruption, unemployment, border conflict, ethnic conflict, and gender.

From 1969 to 1972 Ergashev was imprisoned for spreading anti-Soviet propaganda and nationalist ideas. After serving his sentence, he finished university and became a journalist. During perestroika, Ergashev became the head of a trade union and a member of the Birlik opposition movement, and later of the Erk opposition party. In 1996 he joined the Independent Human Rights Organization of Uzbekistan.

Ergashev fights for democratic development of Uzbek society. “My grandmother taught me to address existing problems. Thus, it became my work to address human rights issues.”

Ulugbek Khaidarov, (b. 1963) is an independent journalist from Jizzakh who regularly contributes to several websites on political developments, social problems, and the human rights situation in Uzbekistan. He is a board member of the Birlik party and has also been involved with the Free Peasant Party (Ozod Dekhonlar) and the human rights organization Ezgulik.

Khaidarov was arrested on the morning of September 14, 2006, on his way home from paying a visit to Bakhtior Khamroev, chair of the Jizzakh branch of the Human Rights Society of Uzbekistan. On October 5, 2006 he was sentenced to six years in prison on charges of extortion. Authorities had accused Khaidarov of blackmailing a woman whom he claims had shoved money in his pockets right before police arrested him. On November 7, the Jizzakh City Court on appeal changed the verdict, released Khaidarov from Navoi prison, and sentenced him to three years of corrective labor. After his release Khaidarov made public allegations about torture to which he had been subjected in pre-trial detention and at the Navoi prison.

Khaidarov is among the many Uzbek journalists who were beaten and harassed in the aftermath of the May 13, 2005 Andijan massacre. On June 24, 2005 two unidentified men in uniform attacked him in Karshi on his way to visit Tulkin Karaev, a journalist and human rights activist. As a result of the beating Khaidarov sustained a large contusion to his head, severe swelling of the face, and bruises on his body; one eye was swollen shut. A doctor confirmed that Khaidarov had suffered a concussion.  

Bakhtior Khamroev, (b.1955) is chair of the Jizzakh province branch of the Human Rights Society of Uzbekistan. His priorities include the rights of religious and political prisoners, farmers’ issues, and children’s rights.

Khamroev became interested in human rights in his twenties. “In the 1970s I came across a book entitled America showing people protesting on the street. I wondered why they protested while living in such wealth. I decided to travel all over the Soviet Union to get to know the world,” he says. Towards the end of perestroika, Khamroev became a member of the opposition movement Birlik, and a member of the Human Rights Society of Uzbekistan in 1992.

Like many other human rights defenders, Khamroev’s human rights work intensified in the late 1990s, when the mass arrests of independent Muslims began. He was temporarily detained and physically attacked several times. Despite all the difficulties Khamroev continues to work. “I am not able to be silent and sit quietly when I see injustice,” he describes as his motivation to work. Khamroev’s son, Ikhtior, was sentenced to three years in prison for alleged hooliganism in September 2006. Many, including Human Rights Watch, believe Ikhtior Khamroev’s son’s imprisonment is retribution for his father’s human rights work.

Uktam Pardaev, (b.1978) is head of the Jizzakh province branch of the Independent Human Rights Organization of Uzbekistan. He assists people in drafting and filing complaints to the authorities and also reports publicly about beatings and torture in custody. In addition, he monitors children’s rights, especially child labour.

Pardaev became involved in human rights after his father, a human rights activist and colleague of Bakhtior Khamroev, died in 2004. He decided to continue his father’s work. “I try to do what I can, but sometimes it is very difficult to work. The families of human rights defenders are especially at risk of harassment,” he says. Pardaev was among the activists whose houses were targeted during “hate rallies” in May 2005. On May 26, 70 people arrived at Pardaev’s house, hitting him in the stomach, shouting at him, and calling him a “Wahabbist” and “a terrorist” and threatening to “teach him a lesson.” Several women from the crowd encouraged his neighbors to kick the family out of the neighborhood. Only when his mother came out of the house did the crowd stop beating and attacking him.

Uktam and his younger brother, Utkir, have monitored illegal child labour in Jizzakh. Utkir was arrested, charged with “inflicting bodily injury” and sentenced to four years in prison in June 2006 in a trial his relatives and Human Rights Watch believe was in retribution for assisting his brother’s human rights work. Nevertheless Pardaev continues to work because he believes in the future. “I hope that at some point people will understand my work,” he says.

On June 16, 2006 Yadgar Turlibekov was arrested and charged with insult and slander. On October 9, 2006 he was sentenced to three and a half years in prison. He did not have a defense lawyer of his choice. Turlibekov was released under the general amnesty in December 2006.

Looking back on his detention, he says today “I have lost twenty kilograms in weight but gained twenty kilograms of experience.” Immediately after his release Turlibekov started to report about prison conditions and the ill-treatment of prisoners in Uzbekistan. Turlibekov plans to continue his human rights work.

Akhmadjon Madumarov, (b.1946), of the city of Margilan, is deputy head of the Ferghana province branch of the Independent Human Rights Organization of Uzbekistan. He monitors and reports on the trials and prison conditions of independent Muslims, as well as on the situation of their families.

Madumarov became interested in human rights when his friend was tried for alleged rape in the 1970s. “When he was released from the courtroom, after a trial that took place on and off for three years, people in need started to approach me and ask for help. I did not know that I was a human rights defender; I just did my work,” he says. During perestroika Madumarov became a member of Birlik. When the number of arrests of independent Muslims increased in 1996 Abdusalom Ergashev invited Madumarov to work with the Independent Human Rights Organization of Uzbekistan.

“I live in a place where human rights are restricted. I would like to see human rights a top priority. If human rights were not violated, this society would blossom,” says Madumarov, who has three sons and two nephews in prison on religion-related charges. The organization Frontline awarded Madumarov the Front Line Award for Human Rights Defenders at Risk in June 2006.

Kamil Ashurov, (b.1957) is director of the Samarkand-based Human Rights Initiative Center, an unregistered organization, and a member of the Human Rights Society of Uzbekistan. The center was formed in 2002 to protect human rights and uphold the rule of law in Samarkand province and throughout Uzbekistan.  His main focus is on the persecution of Protestants and of independent Muslims, prison conditions, and protecting the rights of the Tajik minority in Samarkand and elsewhere in Uzbekistan.

Ashurov’s main inspiration comes from Gorbachev’s first public speech about perestroika and glasnost. Immediately after this event Ashurov and others established the Tajik Cultural Center in Samarkand, which was registered in 1991. In 1993, the center lost its registration status when local NGOs were forced to re-register and its application was refused. The center has continued to operate since then without registration.

Ashurov’s educational background is in history and journalism, and he contributed to the establishment of a trilingual newspaper in Samarkand. The Tajik Cultural Center and the Human Rights Initiative Center publish bulletins and information on a regular basis. In October 2003 Ashurov was charged with illegally producing and distributing media publications, for which he was fined.

“I come from a multiethnic family. For this reason I wish that people in our society could live together peacefully,” says Ashurov. “I hope that Uzbekistan becomes a real democracy soon."

Salima Kadyrova, (b. 1933) has been a lawyer for 40 years and is the deputy head of the Human Rights Initiative Center in Samarkand.  She is a member of the Samarkand Bar Association and has defended the rights of the exiled Erk leader, Muhammad Solih.

Currently the authorities are threatening to revoke Kadyrova’s license to practice law.  At the end of August 2006, a man came to her house saying he wanted to hire her as a lawyer. Despite the fact that they never signed a contract, at the end of September 2006, Kadyrova was called to the local Department of Justice because this man had written a complaint against her. The man, who had tape recorded his conversation with Kadyrova, accused her of seeking to overcharge him for her services. The case is pending.

Addressing President Islam Karimov, Kadyrova says, “I have worked as a lawyer for many years.  In December 2001, I wrote you an open letter in which I pointed out that the Uzbek judicial system is decayed and collapsing before our very eyes, and that the peoples’ rights in Uzbekistan, which constitute the foundation for democracy building, are violated regularly.” Kadyrova was nominated in the campaign “1000 Women for the Nobel Peace Price 2005.”

Fakhriddin Tilloev (b. 1971), from Boisun district, Surkhandaryo province, is head of the unregistered human rights group Free Citizen (Ozod Fukaro), and a member of the Erk party. Previously he was involved with the Independent Human Rights Organization of Uzbekistan. Tilloev monitors trials, works as public defender at trials, and assists people to write complaints. Currently he is researching problems of labor migration from Boisun to Russia, including some cases of potentially wrongful deaths of labor migrants.

Tilloev became interested in human rights in 2000 when he was still working for the local government. That year he was among 200 protestors who voiced dissatisfaction about the province governor’s fixed election to parliament. Six men filed a complaint with a court, but the case was closed after three years without success for Tilloev and the others. This failure did not prevent Tilloev from establishing a human rights group in Surkhandaryo. In May 2005 they were refused registration by the authorities, but continue to work.

In March 2005 Tilloev was detained for five days for allegedly insulting a police officer. In October 2006 police in his home district confiscated, without explanation, his passport and military service document. “I hope that ordinary citizens and human rights defenders will be able to live without pressure in Uzbekistan in the future.”

Ismail Adylov, (b.1950) is a long-time human rights activist from Tashkent. After he was arrested in 1994, he began investigating cases of illegal arrest, monitoring trials, and conducting dozens of interviews with victims of torture and their families. In 1997 he joined the Independent Human Rights Organization of Uzbekistan, which was registered in 2002 shortly before President Karimov traveled to Washington, D.C., to meet with President Bush.

In spring 1999, the Karimov government launched an aggressive campaign against Adylov and his colleagues, apparently aimed at silencing their revelations regarding religious repression and mass violations of human rights by state authorities. In July of that year, Tashkent police took Adylov into custody and raided his home. A court hearing that lasted only three hours and mimicked Soviet-era show trials found him guilty; Adylov was sentenced in September 1999 to six years in prison. For most of the time he was in prison, Adylov was subjected to torture and denied medical treatment. After an international campaign calling for Adylov's release President Karimov finally granted his freedom on July 3, 2001.

Tamara Chikunova, (b. 1948) is chair of the Tashkent-based NGO Mothers against the Death Penalty and Torture. She works toward the abolition of the death penalty in Uzbekistan and around the world, and against the use of torture. She also advocates for the humane treatment of those sentenced to death and their relatives.

Chikunova became involved with human rights in 2000, after she learned of the execution of her son, Dmitry. Since then, Chikunova has been in dialogue with the Uzbek government on abolishing the death penalty. Chikunova, members of her family, and members of her organization have been attacked and detained several times. The organization’s office has been burglarized and its communications tapped. Despite Chikunova’s efforts to register Mothers against the Death Penalty and Torture, Uzbek authorities twice rejected the organization’s registration application.

Chikunova is an active member of the World Coalition against the Death Penalty. She and her organization have won several international awards, including the 2005 Nuremberg International Human Rights Award and Golden Doves for Peace (2004).

Chikuna is firm and outspoken in her opposition to the death penalty. “I do not work for medals but to remind everybody that we are all human beings. I do not want to see mothers crying because they have lost their loved ones,” she says.

Surat Ikramov, (b.1945), from Tashkent, is head of the Initiative Group of Independent Human Rights Defenders. He specializes in trial monitoring and reports regularly on arbitrary detention, torture, and political and religion-related arrests in Tashkent and other parts of Uzbekistan.

Ikramov’s interest in human rights began with economic and social rights after his private business had problems with the authorities in 1995. “I did not understand anything,” he says, looking back. “I wrote many complaints but did not achieve anything,” In 1999 he started to seek help from human rights organizations and became more aware about the human rights situation in the country. The sheer number of arbitrary arrests and unfair sentences convinced him to set up his own human rights group in February 2002.

In August 2003 Ikramov was attacked and beaten by four masked men. They drove him to the outskirts of Tashkent, threw him to the ground, and tried to burn his car. He was severely injured. After this incident Ikramov was offered political asylum abroad, but chose to remain in his country. “I continued to work on principle.” Ikramov does not understand why the authorities treat him as a threat, he says. “I am not dangerous. I do what everybody should do, including the state.”

Vasila Inoiatova, (b.1956) is from Tashkent and is chair of Ezgulik – one of the two registered human rights organizations in Uzbekistan. Ezgulik has branches throughout Uzbekistan. The organization was registered in 2003, on the eve of the annual meeting of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, which took place in Tashkent.

Inoiatova became active in the civil movement Birlik in 1989, and is now secretary general of the Birlik political party. “Finally somebody was addressing issues everybody was interested in: independence from Russia, sovereignty, and the status of the Uzbek language,” she explains. In 1992 Inoiatova joined the Human Rights Society of Uzbekistan. A year later, the Supreme Court sentenced her to two years in prison for insulting the president for an article she had published about the killing of about 100 students by Uzbek governmental forces in 1992.  She was released under an amnesty.  In 1994 she was held for 16 days in administrative detention to prevent her from travelling to the United States.

After the mass arrests of independent Muslims that followed the February 16, 1999, bombings in Tashkent, Inoiatova became involved in documenting cases of religious persecution. “In Uzbekistan it is very difficult to solve certain problems because the government itself causes these problems. Human rights violations are one of these problems,” says Inoiatova. Ezgulik reports these violations on a regular basis in letters sent directly to the Uzbek government and in other statements that it distributes widely and posts to its website.

Makhbuba Kasymova, (b.1949) is a former teacher from Tashkent who for some years was active with the Independent Human Rights Organization of Uzbekistan (NOPChU). She later left the organization to work independently. She focuses on the issue of female prisoners in Uzbekistan. 

During the perestroika era, Kasymova became a member of the Birlik social movement and was among the many opposition members who were harassed in the early 1990s in connection with their work. Kasymova became involved in human rights as she monitored the waves of arrests that followed the murders of several policemen in the Ferghana Valley in 1997 and the February 1999 bombings in Tashkent.

In an effort to discredit Kasymova’s human rights activities, police brought her before her  local neighborhood committee in May 1999, where 200 people had come to publicly denounce her.  Kasymova was reportedly pointed out to relatives of victims of the February bombings situated in the crowd as “one of the sort of people who killed your sons.” In an unfair trial in September 1999, Kasymova was found guilty on charges of misappropriation of funds and concealing or failing to report a crime. She was given a five- year prison sentence but was released in December 2000 as the result of an international campaign on her behalf. Since her release, Kasymova has continued her work.

Akzam Turgunov, Akzam Turgunov (b. 1952), from Tashkent, heads the unregistered organization Mazlum (The Oppressed). His work focuses on the rights of political and religious prisoners, torture, and public education. He monitors trials and works as a public defender on a regular basis.

Turgunov started human rights work in 1994. “We met regularly in a small café near Independence Square. It was at that cafe that we came up with the idea to establish the Independent Human Rights Organization of Uzbekistan.” Turgunov’s human rights activities were inspired by the work of Soviet dissident Andrei Sakharov and the Polish Solidarity movement. “I was interested in human rights before I knew what human rights were,” he says.

In 1998 Turgunov was sentenced to six years in prison on politically motivated charges of “abuse of office” and “official negligence,” related to his work on his neighborhood committee to set up private alternatives to services that are supposed to be provided by the state. He was released under an amnesty in May 2000. In September of the same year he founded Mazlum. Since then, he and members of his family have been intimidated and harassed many times. For instance, in 2005 he was charged with insulting a woman at a bazaar, but the case was ultimately dismissed.

Turgunov strives to improve the human rights situation in Uzbekistan. “If everybody keeps silent, the situation will worsen,” he says. Recently, Turgunov was denied an exit visa by the Uzbek authorities and therefore cannot leave the country.

Elena Urlaeva (b. 1957), from Tashkent, is involved with the Human Rights Alliance of Uzbekistan. She became interested in human rights issues in 1998 after her brother’s custody battle for his children. “When I supported him I met many people who complained about injustice,” she says. She later began working with Tolib Yakubov, chair of the Human Rights Society of Uzbekistan, after which she was fired from her job as an electrician at a television station and has since monitored human rights in Uzbekistan.

Her main activities include reporting on arbitrary police conduct, such as arbitrary detention and torture, trial monitoring, and compiling information about the state’s use of enforced psychiatric treatment as a means to silence critics.

Urlaeva has been harassed and detained many times. In 2001, 2002, and 2005 Uzbek authorities subjected her to forced psychiatric treatment, including the administration of powerful antipsychotic drugs. In October 2005 a court ordered her to undergo six months of outpatient psychiatric treatment. In November 2006 the court renewed that decision without Urlaeva’s knowledge or providing her with a copy of the ruling. As a result, Urlaeva is obligated to meet once a month with a doctor at a psychiatric clinic and is listed in the local police registry as mentally ill.

In March 2006 Urlaeva’s husband was beaten up at a bus stop while waiting for her to return from monitoring a trial. Urlaeva herself is detained and questioned for several hours by police or secret service on a regular basis.

“My human rights activities give me satisfaction and I fight to stop the arbitrariness of the police and show that trials are based on fabricated accusations,” she says.