Human rights campaigners ask OSCE for protection

Human rights campaigners in Uzbekistan recently met with the OSCE [Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe] mission and asked for protection against abuses targeting some rights defenders in the most populous Central Asian nation. "OSCE in Uzbekistan, Ambassador Ahmet Erozan invited human rights campaigners [for a meeting] and we had a very useful discussion," Tolib Yakubov, head of the Human Rights Society of Uzbekistan, a local rights group, told IRIN from the Uzbek capital, Tashkent on Tuesday. According to Yakubov, before the meeting, held on 4 September at the 'Poyitaht' hotel in Tashkent, a group of human rights campaigners also staged a protest, demanding protection from international organisations, including the OSCE. "Incidents of attacking and beating of human rights defenders have increased recently," Yakubov stated, adding that Tohir Talibov, a member of their organisation was beaten on 16 August. There were another three incidents in August. Surat Ikramov, the leader of an independent human rights group, was kidnapped by unknown assailants and beaten. Earlier last month, Ruslan Sharipov, a human rights campaigner and a journalist, who had been critical of Uzbek law-enforcement bodies, was sentenced to five and a half years in jail by an Uzbek court for having homosexual relations. Mutabar Tajibaeva, the leader of a protest in the eastern Uzbek town of Ferghana was beaten by a group of women on 20 August and she reportedly said that the authorities organised her beating. Yakubov said these cases of abuse had been discussed at the meeting. "Ambassador [Erozan]was asked if any mechanism of protecting human rights defenders on behalf of the OSCE and other international organisations would be developed," he explained. "We had an EBRD [European Bank for Reconstruction and Development] meeting here in May and the OSCE decided to meet with human rights activists and to listen to them after we received so many complaints," Marie-Carin von Gumppenberg, a political officer at the OSCE centre, told IRIN from Tashkent. EBRD was established in 1991 when communism was crumbling in central and eastern Europe and ex-soviet countries needed support to nurture a new private sector in a democratic environment. The mandate of the EBRD stipulates that it must only work in countries that are committed to democratic principles. She said that the OSCE mission to Uzbekistan had already met with rights groups in June and the recent meeting was the second round in the follow up to the EBRD meeting in May. Von Gumppenberg said they discussed issues of torture and the OSCE's activities with regard to human rights in the country. "The OSCE is observing the situation [regarding human rights] and it got a significant number of complaints in the follow up of the EBRD meeting," von Gumppenberg said. Meanwhile, a group of campaigners staged a protest at the United Nations Development Programme [UNDP] building in the country on the same day of the OSCE meeting to air their complaints. "They came to our office and said that they wanted to complain about cases against some human rights activists here in Uzbekistan," Zanofer Ismalebbe, Human Rights Development Officer for the UNDP Resident Coordinator, told IRIN from Tashkent. Ismalebbe noted that the reason why they came to the UN was because they had a human rights complaints handling system at their office. "We do it to help them forward their complaints to the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in Geneva," Ismalebbe explained, adding that the complaints would only be dealt with on an individual basis.