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Pre-trial Detention

When making arrests or taking people into pre-trial detention, police in Uzbekistan routinely violate international standards and Uzbek criminal procedure, making detainees more vulnerable to ill-treatment and torture, and making it difficult for torture victims to seek relief and ultimately to find justice for their abuse. ³⁰ It is commonplace for the police to isolate detainees, to fail to inform them about their rights, not to register their detention (or to postpone the registration as long as possible), and not to allow detainees access to a lawyer of their choice from the time of their arrest.

Isolation and Violation of Detention Procedures

The Uzbek Code of Criminal Procedure allows “officers of the police or any other inquiry agency as well as any legally capable person”³¹ to apprehend a suspect: a) “before and after the initiation of a criminal case;”³² b) during or after committing a crime; c) if eyewitnesses point at the person; or, d) if “there exists other information providing cause to suspect a person of having committed an offense.”³³

The Criminal Procedure Code limits the period after which a detainee must be either charged and informed of the charges or released to 72 hours. It requires an official record (or protokol, in Russian) of the detention to be established. It stipulates that there must be a review of the validity of the detention not later than 24 hours after the detention.³⁴ In practice, however, police ignore or avoid these legal regulations.

For example, in spring 2006, 24-year-old Mirzo M. was detained without any explanation by plainclothes police agents in the shop where he was working. He was kept for two days at the police department of a provincial capital in western Uzbekistan, and beaten until he was willing to say that another man detained together with him had been “teaching” him the religious ideas of Hizb ut-Tahrir. He told Human Rights Watch that before the police released him:

They took a statement from me that I would show up there immediately upon receiving an order. They didn’t explain my rights to me and didn’t tell me who I was – the accused, a witness, or someone else. The whole time they just said “confess and we’ll let you go. […] I didn’t have a lawyer at any time, not during the investigation, nor after.³⁵

Only six months later, when Mirzo M. was summoned to a trial against eight alleged Hizb ut-Tahrir members, he learned that he was a witness and not a suspect in this criminal case.

In summer 2006, a lawyer reported to Human Rights Watch that despite many requests she had sent to the authorities to clarify the legal status of her client, Rafshan R., only after two months did she receive a response confirming that he had been arrested and charged with membership in an extremist religious organization. When she was finally allowed to see him, Rafshan asked her “to explain his rights to him, what rights he has and what rights he does not have, what he is allowed to do and what not. They did not even explain this [his rights] to him.”³⁶

Sometimes the police may “invite” people to the police station to be witnesses or to write an explanatory note, without issuing a summons, and then arrest them as suspects upon arrival. Since the official nature of such a visit is “voluntary” the police do not register it as a detention, but rather keep that person for several days in custody before “officially” arresting or releasing him or her. Interviewees told Human Rights Watch they did not know they had the right not to respond to the “invitation” by the police without an official summons³⁷ and that even if they knew they might go anyway, fearing that refusal to do so might cause even more problems for them or their relatives.

Sometimes the neighborhood police (uchastkovyi) or a representative from the mahalla (or local neighborhood) committee take part in issuing “invitations” that result in arrest.³⁸ They send a representative to the house of the “suspect” and ask him to come to the mahalla committee or to the neighborhood police. When he shows up, police agents take him to the city or district police station. The mother of Dilobar D., a young woman ultimately charged with Hizb ut-Tahrir membership, told Human Rights Watch that “a woman from the mahalla committee and the neighborhood police officer came to her house and asked for Dilobar. When she stepped outside they took her forcibly to the local department of internal affairs, without a warrant, and she remained in custody until her trial.”³⁹ Two months later she was sentenced to three years in prison for alleged membership in Hizb ut-Tahrir.

Police are also known to detain suspects under the Code of Administrative Offenses for such misdemeanors as swearing in public or “petty hooliganism” or accuse individuals they have “invited” to the police station of such acts, which amount to arbitrary detention. While the Uzbek Criminal Procedure Code guarantees criminal suspects in custody immediate access to a lawyer, the law is less clear on the right to meet with a lawyer for those held under the Code of Administrative Offenses.⁴⁰ For example, lawyers are not mandatory for administrative court hearings.⁴¹ Through our interviews and trial monitoring, Human Rights Watch learned of numerous individuals who, after a summary administrative hearing, were locked up in administrative detention. Police then exploited this time to coerce from the individual a confession or testimony against a third party, or to open a criminal case against the detained person.

For example, in winter 2007 the neighborhood police in a neighborhood of Tashkent province “invited” 20-year-old Jurabek J. as a witness in a murder case to the district police station. After two hours of questioning, the police took him to the district court, where he was sentenced to several days in administrative detention because he allegedly had insulted a person in the street. During the next two days he was ill-treated while in custody. He had no access to a lawyer prior to, during, and after the administrative court hearing.⁴²

Another young man, Dilshod Maripaliev was arrested on November 18, 2005 and sentenced to seven days of administrative detention because he had allegedly insulted a woman. Immediately after his initial detention the police agent told him: “If you do not cooperate your seven days will turn into seven years.” According to his trial testimony, Dilshod was severely beaten while in administrative detention. Two months later he learned that he had been charged under article 244/2 – 1 of the Uzbek Criminal Code (“setting up, leading and participating in religious extremist, separatist, fundamentalist or other banned organizations”).⁴³ On April 19, 2006 the Tashkent Province Court found him guilty of a slightly lesser charge and sentenced him to three years on parole.⁴⁴

In winter 2007, Tatyana T., a young ethnic Russian woman, was summoned as a witness in a murder case and ended up being sentenced to three days of administrative detention for insulting somebody in the street while drunk. Before the judge issued the administrative sentence several police officers coerced her to sign a document in Uzbek that she did not understand. During the next three days she was questioned, insulted, and did not receive any food; she was not otherwise physically abused. Before she was released she had to sign a statement saying that the police treated her well.⁴⁵

Information provided by victims and their relatives to Human Rights Watch clearly indicates that it is routine for both administrative detainees and criminal suspects to be held in unspecified or unregistered detention until they sign a statement that has essentially been dictated to them by the authorities. They are then transferred to a regular investigation facility and it is only at this point that the official, criminal investigation process starts. ⁴⁶

Investigative facilities sometimes refuse to accept new detainees bearing torture marks or in poor health. To avoid this, police may keep the person longer in unregistered or misdemeanor detention until any bruises and other visible marks are less visible. For example, in May 2007 Nargiza N. learned that two police agents beat her son, Agzam A., him on his head, back, and heals after his detention in November 2006. Agzam told his mother that he was so covered in bruises and his heels were so swollen that they kept him for a period of between six and 16 days (she could not remember) in the basement holding facility at the Ministry of Internal Affairs building until his wounds healed, after which they transferred him to the investigation prison No. 1 in Tashkent, known colloquially by the Russian abbreviation as TashTiurma.⁴⁷

In August 2006, 39-year-old Kodirali Nishanboev, a defendant in a group trial against 14 alleged Hizb ut-Tahrir members, testified that on March 19, 2006 the reception guards at TashTiurma refused to take him in because he was “looking too bad.” He also testified that he had previously been tortured in police custody in Kibrai, northeast of Tashkent, for eight days and coerced to sign a confession stating that he was a member of an illegal religious group. The police initially “invited” him to come with them for two hours to write an explanation (obiasnitelnoe). As soon as he arrived at the police station an officer started to beat him with a filled water bottle on his head and his chest, although Nishanboev said that he was ill with tuberculosis. After several days of beatings, when the prosecutor read his “confession” to him Nishanboev had no more energy and signed. For the next four days he was subjected to further beatings. When they finally decided to transfer him to TashTiurma he was covered in bruises and had a bump on his head.⁴⁸

The example of Kodirali Nishanboev also shows that the beatings do not always stop after police have obtained a “confession.” Other interviewees and defendants said they had written or signed statements just to get relief from the ill-treatment and torture, only to endure further abuse.

Relatives of detainees Human Rights Watch interviewed spoke of the absolute chaos they faced trying to find their family member in custody after their detention. The authorities often do not inform families where their relative is being held in custody or the official charges against the individual, and are evasive or misleading with the relatives as long as possible.⁴⁹ Numerous visitors to the Human Rights Watch office in Tashkent complained about the elaborate efforts and immense amount of time it took for them to track down the whereabouts of their family members in custody. For example, Nodira N. was an eyewitness when 30 men in plain clothes came to arrest her husband and search the house in Tashkent: “They took him away but did not say where. Three days later a lawyer [I did not know] called and told me that my husband is in the city police department.”⁵⁰ Khamida Abdukhalilova testified at the trial of her son, Bakhtior Abdukhalilov, who was charged with religious extremism, that “on January 5, 2006 Bakhtior was summoned [by the police] to sign some paper and then disappeared. Only 42 days later I was able to track down where he was being held.”⁵¹ Nobody had informed her that her son was arrested.

While they search for their relatives in custody, families have nowhere to turn for advice and assistance, are often turned away by police guards, do not have money to pay a lawyer and often do not trust the state-appointed defense lawyers. Furthermore, family members of detainees are often treated by the authorities as though they too were suspects, and are threatened “not to make the situation worse” for the detainee. For example, Sevara S., the wife of a detainee forcibly returned from Kazakhstan to Uzbekistan in November 2005 told Human Rights Watch that at the end of February 2006, the wives of several returnees were summoned to the Ministry of Internal Affairs and told to “shut up and stay at home.”⁵² The women had been seeking support from international organizations and the diplomatic community in Tashkent and gone to great lengths to locate their husbands in custody.

Restrictions on the Right to a Lawyer of One’s Choice

As noted above, the Uzbek Criminal Procedure Code clearly grants individuals the right to a lawyer of their own choice from the moment they are apprehended or declared a suspect, and grants them the right to confidential meetings and other communication with their lawyers.⁵³ In practice, police and the investigation authorities violate detainees’ right of access to a lawyer on a regular basis.

Nowadays the authorities often make sure to appoint a state defense lawyer within 24 hours after the detention is officially registered (but not necessarily the real detention date), although in many cases they create enormous obstacles to prevent defense lawyers hired by the detainees’ families from gaining access to their clients. In addition to engaging in the practices described above to prevent the detainee from gaining initial access to a lawyer, the authorities may deny detainees confidential meetings with counsel, threaten the families to get rid of a certain lawyer because otherwise their son or husband “would be sentenced to more years in prison,”⁵⁴ or even in some case threaten the lawyers themselves.

While she was in custody, the client of an ethnic Russian lawyer was pressured by the authorities in her place of detention to tell her lawyer that she did “not understand Russian and refuse her services.”⁵⁵ Ulugbek Khaidarov, the human rights defender, got to see his defense lawyer only after ten days in detention. After this meeting he was tortured until he wrote a statement rejecting the services of this lawyer. “I never saw this lawyer again,” he told Human Rights Watch.⁵⁶

In order to avoid the interference of a defense lawyer during investigations, police in some cases mislead detainees or their relatives that they do not need an attorney, or that one will not be necessary until their case reaches trial, or will pressure them to accept a state-appointed attorney. For example, Shukhrat S., who went to the police department where his son was held the night after his arrest, was told by a police officer outside the building that “It is still too early” [to hire a lawyer].⁵⁷

Human Rights Watch learned from lawyers, defendants, and relatives across the board that defense lawyers are regularly denied access to their clients and that even if they are granted access the meetings are monitored by police or prison guards. In many cases the investigative authorities, whose approval is required in written form in order for lawyers to see their clients in custody, would not pick up the phone when lawyers would call to arrange approval, or would say they have no time to meet with lawyers to provide the approval.⁵⁸ Sometimes lawyers are told by the staff of the detention facility that their clients were moved from one place of detention to another, only to find at the new place of detention that their clients had been moved back. For example, in her final statement at a trial against 14 alleged Hizb ut-Tahrir members defense lawyer Normatova complained to the judge that she could not find her client for a long time:

First they told me he was being held in the basement of the GUVD [Russian acronym for the city police department].⁵⁹ At the GUVD they told me he was not there. Then I went to TashTiurma, there I was told he was sent back to the GUVD. When I came to GUVD again they finally told me that he is in the prison hospital and not able to talk to anybody.⁶⁰

Many families simply do not know any lawyers or do not have the means to pay a lawyer. In such cases the state appoints a lawyer to defend the detainee free of charge. Every police station or department of internal affairs has an arrangement with a law firm that is on obligatory stand-by (zakreplenii) and must provide legal representation whenever the respective interrogation agency is holding someone in need of it. The senior lawyer of the law firm would then be obligated to assign a lawyer for that person. This service is highly unpopular with lawyers because it means a lot of work for little money. Lawyer Svetlana S. told Human Rights Watch that “It can take up to two years to get paid for this work,” and that it was usually the young, inexperienced lawyers who are assigned to such detainees because they need the practice.⁶¹

Families and detainees tend not to trust state-appointed defense lawyers. They report that such lawyers are not interested in the case or do nothing to prevent procedural violations. Several defendants testified at trial that their state defense lawyers simply told them to “hang in there.” Kodirali Nishanboev met his state-appointed defense lawyer for five minutes, only after he was beaten and coerced to sign a “confession.” The only thing she recommended to him was “to ask for forgiveness.”⁶² At his trial in spring 2006 on charges of religious “extremism,” Alisher Karjavov testified that his state-appointed lawyer had told him during the investigation to confess even if he was not guilty, because this “would make things easier.”⁶³ At his July 2006 trial on charges of membership in Hizb ut-Tahrir, Latif Ayupov summarized his attorney’s lack of interest in his case: “I got a lawyer who did not even look at me.”⁶⁴

As noted above, state-appointed defense lawyers in particular do not or cannot provide an effective defense. In some cases trials do not start in time because the families were not able to hire a lawyer of their own choice and the state defense lawyers do not show up in time because they were informed by the court on too short notice. ⁶⁵ It is not an exception that a state defense lawyer is not at all prepared and that a family would not know the name of the defense lawyer. In some cases the state defense lawyers have acted in a biased manner and not in the interest of their clients. Such lawyers are less likely to raise torture allegations or to seek justice for their clients. An extreme example were six defense lawyers in the first Andijan-related Supreme Court trial, who began their remarks by begging the citizens of Andijan for forgiveness for defending such “guilty persons.”⁶⁶

Failure of Pre-trial Safeguards and Complaints Mechanisms

The Uzbek Criminal Procedure Code provides mechanisms that detainees may access to complain about, and seek relief from, torture and ill-treatment while in custody. These include confidential meetings with lawyers, complaints to a representative from the prosecutor’s office or to the Office of the Ombudsman, but in practice these mechanisms do not function. For example, human rights defender Vasila Inoiatova of the Uzbek human rights organization Ezgulik reported to Human Rights Watch that in her organization’s experience, when people approach the Office of the Prosecutor General with their letters describing the torture they or their relatives endured, their letters are in some cases rejected and not dealt with.⁶⁷

Another barrier to relief is that most Uzbek citizens interviewed by Human Rights Watch had little understanding of their rights or of the domestic law governing criminal procedure, which the authorities exploit rather than correct. They learn about the legal details of an investigation at trial only – often a long time after they were subjected to police abuse. Many defendants do not know the difference between a police agent (operativnik) and an investigator, and their respective legal roles in the detention and investigation processes.⁶⁸ In general police agents do not tell their full name and position to a detainee, nor are there mechanisms in place to ensure that agents can subsequently be identified. At most they would identify themselves as “Sokhib Aka” or the like.⁶⁹ This practice makes it extremely difficult for detainees to provide the identity of their torturers later and thereby to substantiate their torture allegations.

In order to conceal their actions, police agents, or people acting on their behalf may also ill treat detainees outside of formal interrogation sessions. Even when legal counsel requests to be present during interrogation, abuse may occur before questioning has begun. For example, Dilshod Maripaliev testified at trial that during the official investigation police agents would take him to the toilet several times and beat him to make sure he said everything expected of him by the investigator.⁷⁰ Mansur Kholikov, one of Maripaliev’s co-defendants, testified that “Everyday before the investigation operatvniki came to beat me and drummed it in to me what to say during the investigation.” When he complained to the investigator, the latter answered, “If I release you now, I myself will be in trouble.⁷¹

While in theory detainees could report torture at a meeting with an investigator or prosecutor they may not be aware that they could do so, may not be given the time to do so, or may fear that doing so would only make their situation worse. When prosecutors meet with detainees in custody and can see physical evidence of ill-treatment, they are obligated to take action. However, as is illustrated in one of the cases Human Rights Watch investigated, this does not necessarily happen. Kodirali Nishanboev was arrested on March 11, 2006 and taken to a detention facility in Kibrai, where he was badly tortured. He testified at trial that the prosecutor saw him on March 14, 2006 for two minutes to issue an official arrest warrant. At trial, his lawyer asked him if the prosecutor could have seen that he was tortured and Kodirali said “Yes, I had a bump on my head.”⁷² One of Nishanboev’s co-defendants, Nodir Giozov, who was also held and tortured in Kibrai said at trial that “The prosecutor did not even come into the room. He only asked if I was Giozov. He did not ask anything else.” ⁷³

Another barrier to redress for torture in pre-trial detention is the lack of confidential meetings for lawyers and their clients, during which a detainee could tell his or her lawyer about any torture without fear of retribution. A lawyer from Tashkent told Human Rights Watch that his request for a confidential meeting with a client is normally met with “Yes, what kind of secrets do you have?” Or officials would pressure the client by asking her “Oh, you have secrets?” and when the client gets scared and answers “No,” there is no hope for a confidential meeting. According to this lawyer, the Tashkent City Police Department, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and the National Security Services never grant confidential meetings. ⁷⁴ Other lawyers made similar statements (see the section Trial, below). Kodirali Nishanboev answered the judge’s question about confidential meetings in pre-trial detention, saying:

I never had a confidential meeting with a lawyer. I know that the pressure would have increased if I had complained. I am a human being. I am not made of iron. Even animals scream when you beat them. I was scared. That is why I did not complain.⁷⁵

In a trial of eight men accused of “Wahhabism” at the Tashkent Province Court in March and April 2006, several defendants testified about having been tortured in pre-trial detention and revoked statements made during the investigation, which they claimed were given under duress. Human Rights Watch monitored the trial. Judge Shermukhamedov questioned the defendants about why they had not reported the abuse to the investigator or their lawyer. Several of the defendants replied that they did not trust their lawyers; others said they were too scared of the police, who were always present when they met with their lawyers.

In addition to the lack of confidential meetings with lawyers there are no effective safeguards in place to protect detainees when they tell their lawyers about torture and ill-treatment in custody. Bakhtior Abdukhalilov, who actually told his lawyer and the investigator during the investigation how police agents beat him to coerce a confession, was beaten even more afterwards. When on trial on charges of religious “extremism,” Abdukhalilov told the court:

The next day I told the investigator and my lawyer what had happened. In the evening a physician came and asked me where they beat me. The operativniki and one officer on duty were in the same room. […] The next evening they brought me into a room. My lawyer and the investigator were not there. They told me to undress. I was standing there in my underwear. Then they started to beat me. This went on for a long time. First I was still able to stand, but then I could only sit on a chair. They showed me a piece of paper and told me to read it. I could not see anything and could not hear with my left ear. […] Everything inside hurt […] On Monday the investigator called me into his room and said, “Now you know what you have to answer.” I confessed everything. The investigator called two physicians. I told them that I was not able to eat and that my head hurt. I was scared to say anything more because the operativniki were standing there. I was given a headache tablet.⁷⁶

According to article 215 of the Criminal Procedure Code, detained persons have the right not only to confidential meetings with lawyers but also “to use legislative materials, to have paper and stationery for writing complaints, motions, and other procedural documents.”⁷⁷ In the case described immediately above, the judge asked Bakhtior Abdukhalilov why he had not complained to the prosecutor’s office about his treatment. Abdukhalilov answered that he had been denied pen and paper in police custody, but had submitted a complaint once he was transferred to the pre-trial prison.⁷⁸

Thirty-one-year-old Nodir Giosov, charged with article 244-2 part 1 of the Uzbek Criminal Code (“setting up, leading, and participating in religious extremist, separatist, fundamentalist or other banned organizations”), testified at trial that because of extensive beatings after his arrest on March 1, 2006 he lost consciousness, and the prison guards called an ambulance. He got an injection and pills and regained consciousness. When he asked for paper and a pen to write a complaint, prison guards told him that this was not possible. “Then I understood that it makes no sense to complain,” Giosov told the court.⁷⁹ Yadgar Turlibekov, a human rights defender arrested in 2006, remembers that he had asked numerous times for a paper and a pen in pre-trial detention. The only answer he got from the guards was “We do not have paper.”⁸⁰

Harassment of Lawyers

Despite the severe limitations on access to their clients, some lawyers make genuine efforts to protect their clients from abuse during the preliminary investigation, and to mount a robust defense at trial. When they do so, they are subjected to threats, intimidation, and even more serious pressure by police, prosecutors, and judges. Lawyers defending high-profile clients are especially vulnerable to such harassment. For example, on May 28, 2006 an Uzbek website believed to be affiliated with the government published an article about the closure of the American Bar Association/Central European and Eurasian Law Initiative (ABA/CEELI)⁸¹ and accusing “lawyers of the law firms Versari and Eviniso [of providing] legal assistance for the activists of non-registered politicized structures and religious extremist movements.”⁸² Both law firms were associated with ABA/CEELI and defending prominent clients in early 2006: Vitaly Krasilovskii of Versari was the defense lawyer of political activist Sanjar Umarov and human rights defender Elena Urlaeva, and Husan Makhbubov of Eviniso was the defense lawyer of human rights defender Mutabar Tojibaeva, who was arrested in October 2005. As a result of the threats, lawyer Krasilovski fled Uzbekistan in summer 2006.

Salima Kadyrova, a lawyer for 40 years and deputy head of the Human Rights Initiative Center in Samarkand, has defended the rights of the exiled leader of Erk, an opposition political party that is banned in Uzbekistan, Muhammed Salih. In autumn 2006 the authorities threatened to revoke Kadyrova’s license to practice law because a man accused her of seeking to overcharge him for her services.⁸³

Torture in Pre-trial Detention Facilities

Prolonged beatings

Prolonged beatings are one of the most common methods used by the police and security agents to frighten detainees, break their will, and compel them to provide a confession or testimony. They often start beating and kicking detainees with their hands, fists, and feet and then continue using truncheons, filled water bottles and various other tools. The story of Alisher A., a witness in a criminal case, is typical of this pattern described by several torture victims to Human Rights Watch. In spring 2006, three plainclothes men arrested Alisher at his bazaar workplace in a district capital in western Uzbekistan without telling him why, all they would say was that they would not beat him if he was innocent. At the police station Alisher was taken into a room with several police officers who immediately started to beat him:

They beat me for twenty minutes. First they beat me with their hands. Then one of them asked for a truncheon but was told that there weren’t any. First I was standing. Two men held me and two men punched me. Later I fell over. Then they kicked me.⁸⁴

Alisher spent the night in custody and was kept in a room where he saw a classmate and another man. His classmate had bruises on his face, and blood was running out of his ear. Alisher was allowed to use the toilet but did not get any food. Throughout the night various police men came to the room, yelled at the men, and beat them. They forced the detainees to stand and keep a chair above their head. They forced them to do push-ups. Anyone who failed was beaten. The next morning a heavy-set police man took Alisher into another room. Alisher asked the man again what the police wanted from him. The man punched Alisher in the stomach, causing him to lose consciousness. When Alisher regained consciousness, the police man asked him if he would confess now but Alisher said no. The man left the room and returned with another police man. They told Alisher to strip and beat him with a truncheon on his legs. When Alisher fell over, one man beat the rest of his body with a truncheon. “I was lying with my belly on the ground. When the police man continued to beat me I started to bleed. My soles burst.”⁸⁵

Finally Alisher wrote a statement that the police dictated to him, and the beatings stopped. He was released late at night after he signed a document that he had no complaints about his treatment in custody. The police summoned him for the next four days but did not beat him anymore.⁸⁶ He revoked his statement at the trial in autumn 2006, where he testified as a witness, and said that it had been coerced under torture.⁸⁷

Human Rights Watch has similar statements on file from former detainees across the country. For example, 20-year-old Bahodir B. described how he and his colleague were beaten and forced to do push-ups in the presence of a man in uniform with an automatic weapon at a province police department in western Uzbekistan in spring 2006. Later Bahodir was separated from his colleague and further beaten with a truncheon and a thick belt. “In total the beating lasted about an hour. They didn’t ask anything.”⁸⁸ Bahodir was a witness, not a suspect, in this case, which involved accusations of religious “extremism.” Twenty-two-year-old Rashid R. was arrested at the same time as Bahodir, and also reports that he was beaten and forced to do push-ups after he was taken into an office at the province police department in order to compel testimony against alleged religious “extremists”:

There were two or three police men who started to swear at us. They insulted our mothers. […] They grabbed me by the hair and beat my face with their elbows and my chest with their fists. Then they began to undress me. One ordered me to do push-ups and lift the chair. They had one main goal – to get a confession against E. […] One of them, a 35-year-old, thick-muscled man grabbed a plastic hanger and started to use it to hit my balls, my hands, and my elbows.⁸⁹

In a prison letter Human Rights Watch received in autumn 2006, Mansur M. describes several beating methods used by National Security Agents to torture him after his arrest in early 2006. The letter said that police had given names to these methods, an indication of the culture of violence.

“To break ply wood” — I was constantly hit in my chest three nights in a row. On the fourth day, even light touching on my chest induced a very painful feeling in the inner organs.

“Horse shoes” — They put me on the bed with my hands tied up and started to hit me in my heels. Five minutes later I started to feel it in my head, it seemed that I was beaten in my head. Afterwards, I could not walk.

“Northern aurora” — My hands were tied up and I was sitting on a chair. Then they started to slightly hit my head. First I felt a headache, then everything looked red, it seemed that the blood was filling my eyes. A few moments later (I lost control of the time) I started to see black and white stripes. It even seemed that I was losing consciousness for a second. After a few moments I could not feel my body (… I was no longer in control of my body). It seemed that my entire body was squeezed in my head which was suffering a severe headache. . . . My brain was working properly but I could not feel my body. The most awful, though, started the next day, when I woke up and could feel my body but not my head.⁹⁰

Other detainees described “slapping the hands simultaneously on both ears”⁹¹ causing lasting ringing in the ear, or “putting eight metal sticks between the fingers and then squeezing the hands with maximum strength.”⁹² Sometimes, several police agents lift a handcuffed detainee as high as possible and then throw him to the floor. Handcuffed, the detainee cannot soften the impact of the fall.⁹³

Two people told Human Rights Watch that they witnessed or heard their sons being beaten by law enforcement agents. In spring 2006 Ruqia R., a woman who lives in a small town in western Uzbekistan, witnessed the ill-treatment of two of her sons, one of them a minor. One day she was on her way back to the small shop she owns and saw how several police men had cornered her 14-year-old son inside the shop.

They beat him in the face. Then he had to stand with his face to the wall. I could see that he had peed himself. The police men did not allow me to go to him.

It turned out that her underage son was present by chance when the police detained alleged religious “extremists” in the neighborhood. They did not take him into custody. However, Ruqia’s elder son, Hurshid, was detained during the same police operation and taken to the province police department. She and her minor son followed the police car and were waiting inside the police building for Hurshid to be released. Then she thought she heard a woman screaming but realized this was Hurshid. She ran to the room where she had heard the screams and opened the door:

I saw my son on the floor. He was lying on his side. Two or three men were sitting on him so that he was unable to move. Several others were beating him with a truncheon on the soles of his feet. His legs were on a chair. . . . My younger son came after me. All three of us were screaming now. Then a higher-ranking police officer [nachalnik] came down the steps. He asked “Who is this woman, why is she here?” I explained the situation to him and begged him to help us. The nachalnik took out his belt and whipped his colleagues, yelling at them “Why are you beating the son in front of his mother?”

The nachalnik took Ruqia and her minor son to another floor, where she waited until 7 p.m. Hurshid was finally released after three days. “His legs were nearly black. His toenails were also black. After one week they all fell off.”⁹⁴ Later, the family learned that the son was a witness, not a suspect, in a criminal investigation against eight alleged Hizb ut-Tahrir members.

Shukhrat S. is the father of E., who was badly tortured and in autumn 2006 sentenced to eight years in prison for alleged Hizb ut-Tahrir membership. He recalled to Human Rights Watch how the parents of several young men and women detained in the same operation as E. were waiting outside of the police building on the night of the arrest in spring 2006:

All the parents were waiting at the gate. We could hear screams and thought these were screams of maniacs. Later we understood that these were screams of our children. We were waiting until 3 or 4 a.m.⁹⁵

It is not just men who are subjected to beatings. When several police agents transferred Bahodir B. from one room to another in the building of the province police department he saw how one of two detained females was beaten: “She was squatting in the corner without the hijab she normally wore. They beat her shoulders with a truncheon.”⁹⁶

Munira M., a relative of Muqqadas M., a woman accused of Hizb ut-Tahrir membership, told Human Rights Watch that she waited outside the police station when 20-year-old Muqqadas was initially detained in spring 2007. She described Muqqadas as looking completely frightened, asking “Where am I?” when she finally left the building after twelve hours in detention. Later Muqqadas told her that the police removed her hijab and beat her on her head and kidneys. Finally, the police released Muqqadas but told her to come back within ten days “to tell the whole story.” ⁹⁷ Two weeks later Muqqadas was officially arrested and after two months found guilty of anti-constitutional activities (article 159 of the Uzbek Criminal Code). She was sentenced to three years on parole.

A lawyer reported to Human Rights Watch that her female client, charged with Hizb ut-Tahrir membership, told her how in spring 2007 agents from the Tashkent City Police Department banged her head against a wall when she refused to give testimony against her sister and sister-in-law.⁹⁸ At her appeals hearing in Syrdaria province, 63-year-old Rimma Tirbakh, accused of hiring somebody to murder her neighbor, described similar mistreatment. She stated that a police man “grabbed me by the coat and hit my head against the wall and said “bitch, confess, come on bitch, confess.”⁹⁹

Electric shock

Several individuals reported that they were either tortured with electric shocks or forced by police to watch as others were tortured with it. Bahodir B. was first beaten for an hour and then saw how his, colleague D., was tortured with electric shocks:

They brought me into the room where D. was. He sat naked on the chair, and his hands were tied to the armrests with a belt. He lost consciousness, and then they poured water on him. When he regained consciousness, they started the electric shocks again. I didn’t see where the shocks came from, just that D. started shaking. After such psychological pressure I signed.¹⁰⁰

Alisher A., detained around the same time as Bahodir B., was tortured for two days before he signed a confession. The police had told him that his alleged religious “teacher” had already confessed everything. Then the police took him into another room:

E. was sitting on a chair. He was naked. He was connected to electronic wires. […] The wire was connected to E.’s nipples and genitals. His chest was blue. He had bruises. He was hardly able to speak. He was sitting on a chair with armrests. His arms and his legs were fixed to the chair. ¹⁰¹

Rashid R., who was in the same group of detainees, was also led into the room where the police tortured E.: “They showed him to me to scare me when they tortured him with electric shocks.¹⁰² Ulugbek Khaidarov reported how he was tortured with electricity connected to his handcuffs: “They brought some box; put the clips to the handcuffs. The policeman put his hand to the box and turned something. My hair just went up. It is strong electrical current, but your heart can manage it.”¹⁰³

Asphyxiation

Police and security officers sometimes use gas masks or plastic bags to effect near asphyxiation of detainees. After forcing an old-fashioned gas mask over the head of the victim, who in some cases is handcuffed to a chair, the oxygen supply is cut. During the ordeal the police might further beat the victim, as was described by 19-year-old Uchqun U., from Tashkent Province. In spring 2007, Uchqun was detained twice on misdemeanor charges—the first time for five days and the second for 16 days—at the Tashkent City Police Department (GUVD).¹⁰⁴ While in custody the police tortured him in attempt to get him to confess involvement in a murder. Ultimately he had to spend a month in the hospital to recover from his injuries. He told Human Rights Watch:

They made me sit down on the floor, still handcuffed. They put a chair in between my handcuffed hands and my back and F. sat on it. In this way he was sitting on top of my head. S. sat on my legs. F. took dark, thick cellophane and twisted its ends near my neck, so I could hardly breathe… on top of it they put a gas mask… I could not breathe. F. was beating my head with his fists and kicking my chest, while S. held my legs, so I could not move. Because of lack of air I started losing consciousness and fainting… when they saw this they took off the mask, and instead of letting me alone to regain my senses, started kicking me on my head and stomach to force me regain consciousness. When I [did] they repeated the entire procedure a second time and again when I started fainting they brought me back to my senses by kicking me with their feet on my head and stomach.”¹⁰⁵

Agzam A. told his mother that in November 2006 police agents put a plastic bag over his head and choked him until he fainted.¹⁰⁶ Ulugbek Khaidarov told Human Rights Watch that he was tortured with a gas mask several times during his detention in September 2006. In addition to closing the oxygen supply the police agents put some burning cotton-wool under the open oxygen supply. “There was an awful smell and acrid smoke. I started coughing and couldn’t breathe. At some moment, I lost consciousness. They took my shirt off and poured water on me.”

Akhmat Tojibaev, a 60-year-old man accused of murder, testified at trial that while he was held in pre-trial detention police agents came in the room where he was being held and tortured him using a gas mask as well as a plastic bag. They also tied his hands behind his back and hit the soles of his feet with a nightstick. “For three days, every twenty minutes they did this to me.”¹⁰⁷

Torture by inmates

Police detectives may also use other criminal detainees whom they trust and accord special privileges in detention facilities to beat, rape, or otherwise force detainees into confessing or providing needed testimony. This practice is used to break the will of detainees, create an atmosphere of fear, and show the detainee that there is no escape.

In a letter Mansur M. wrote in prison about his torture in 2006, he explains how after he refused to confess the investigator told him that the National Security Service—the agency investigating the crime he was accused of committing—would give him “the full elaborated procedure” and transferred him into a cell with hardened inmates. “I was interrogated by the investigator during the entire day, whereas during the night I was beaten up by inmates implying that I should write a letter of confession. When I tried to resist, they broke my jaw. ¹⁰⁸

Uchqun U. witnessed how two cell mates raped a young man in his cell during the night:

There was this young Uzbek, who was stripped and raped by two other people in the cell for the whole night… they kept him naked and raped him several times… the next day they wrote a protocol that he fell down and transferred him to a different place…

Uchqun took this as a warning for him because the investigators threatened him that the same might happen to him if he does not tell the truth. “They told me, you are next to be raped… tell us the truth! I was so scared and terrified…”¹⁰⁹

Psychological pressure, threats and inhuman treatment

Law enforcement authorities use explicit or implicit threats of torture to intimidate detainees and coerce testimony. Detainees are told that “Your verdict is signed already,” “We will put you in prison,” ¹¹⁰ “If you don’t sign I will rape you with the nightstick,” ¹¹¹ or “We will bring your younger brother if you do not sign.” ¹¹² One former detainee reported to Human Rights Watch that police agents told him, falsely, that his mother was in intensive care and was dying. “They would tell me that if I confessed to the crime they would let me see my mom before she dies or I would never see her again.”¹¹³ Threats against family members may be particularly effective because the detainee is isolated from the outside world and has no way of knowing what is happening to them.

Ulugbek Khaidarov reported to Human Rights Watch that in the morning of his third day in detention in September 2006 a police agent told him that his wife came to see him. The police agent mentioned the beauty and youth of Ulugbek’s wife and told him that she had been arrested:

“Now our guys will take care of her. You can watch it.” I asked “What do you want?” And I signed all the blank pages they gave me to sign. I wrote on empty sheets of paper: “All above is written from my words. No pressure was executed on me. I told all of this on my own will. Signature.”¹¹⁴

Other detainees also reported that the police told them their wives were arrested and their agents “will do everything they want” with them.¹¹⁵

As noted above, another method to scare detainees is to show them another detainee while or after he is tortured.¹¹⁶ This occurred in several cases Human Rights Watch researched, and was most prominent in two cases involving multiple defendants, whereby the badly tortured “leader” was shown to other alleged members of the group. In a trial of alleged “Wahhabis” monitored by Human Rights Watch, several young men testified how they were led into a room where their alleged group leader was. One of them, Bakhtior Abdukhalilov, told the court:

I was brought into a room with Z. He looked very bad and was crying. He couldn’t really walk or sit. They told him to explain what could happen to me if I did not confess and then left us alone. He [Z.] told me how they tortured him. He told me that he was beaten up and beaten on the soles of his feet. He said that he did not want me to be beaten up like that. Therefore I should confess and be released on bail. Then they [the police agents] came back. First they promised to release me if I confessed, then they beat me on my face and neck. I wanted to say the truth but nobody was listening. I decided to confess to get out of there and find a lawyer.¹¹⁷

Regarding another group case of eight alleged Hizb ut-Tahrir members, one of the witnesses who was kept in police custody for 24 hours and was himself beaten was taken to a room where he saw his colleague, E.:

He was completely undressed but for his underwear. I saw how they had beaten him. His face and hands were covered in bruises and blood. The torture markings on E.’s body were so severe, that even at court, half a year later, they were visible. […]¹¹⁸

Twenty-four-year-old Mirzo M. describes a slightly different method of scaring detainees:

As a means of psychological pressure, the most senior of those questioning me showed me various pictures of people who had been beaten up: someone who was beheaded, and others. They said that if you don’t cooperate, then you will also be in the same situation, the same fate awaits you.¹¹⁹

Physical conditions in custody

In the course of describing their accounts of detention and ill-treatment, former detainees also told Human Rights Watch about the filthy and inhuman conditions in which they were detained. While it is beyond the scope of this report to provide a comprehensive description of conditions in pretrial custody in Uzbekistan, some accounts are indicative of the serious issues that exist.

According to article 229 of the Uzbek Criminal Procedure Code detained persons “may use their clothes, footwear and other necessary items,” shall be kept under conditions “complying with the sanitary and hygienic rules determined by the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Internal Affairs” and “shall be provided with meals, sleeping accommodation, and other necessary subsistence facilities free of charge and in compliance with the set standards.”¹²⁰ In practice detainees often face a total lack of hygienic and sanitary standards, poor quality of food, lack of mattresses, no access to clean drinking water and no unrestricted access to a toilet.

Uchqun U. describes the condition in the cell where he was locked up for five days:

They fed us only once a day. It was only boiled macaroni, boiled in plain water, without any salt or spices. We were taken to the toilet, which was outside, only once a day, and every time strip searched on the way back. There were no beds in the room, just a cemented floor, with all kind of bugs around. The room had no ventilation. We had to sleep right on the floor, without even mattresses or anything else to cover. Everything around was dirty and there was a complete lack of hygiene. We were not allowed to shower.¹²¹

Yadgar Turlibekov, a human rights defender from Kashkadaria who was arrested on June 16, 2006 and charged with insult and slander, reported similar conditions in his cell. He was locked up for 53 days prior to trial, not allowed to shave, and described himself as soon looking “like a chimpanzee.” The eight men in his cell slept on metal bed frames without mattresses. Only one time per day they were allowed to leave the cell for 15 minutes to use the toilet. Otherwise they had to pee in a bottle. They did not get enough drinking water.¹²²

Tatyana T. remembers the cell where she was kept during her three-day administrative detention in early 2007 as a dirty, unhygienic, tiny place with a cemented floor and no light. The plates “seemed never be washed.” Despite several requests the guards refused to take her out to toilet and gave her a bucket instead. “I had my period then, and they would not allow me to change my clothes. My jeans were saturated with blood, but they would not allow me to change for three days. My mom would bring clothes, but they would not take the parcel from her…”¹²³