Local police in the Jizzakh region arrested Human Rights Society of Uzbekistan member Muidin Kurbanov in September 1998. Acording to his own account, authorities held him incommunicado, tortured him with repeated beatings, and then convicted him, without a lawyer or any witnesses present, to three years in jail on spurious charges of drug possession.

Kurbanov's own account of the police interrogation suggested that he was targeted because of his affiliation with the rights group. He was released under a presidential amnesty decree in January 1999, only to find himself subjected to continued harassment and threats by the local police. Police have repeatedly threatened to rearrest Kurbanov and, in February 2000, again called him in, in order to force him to sell his home and leave town.