ILRF_UZB___Letter_to_Secretary_Clinton_27September2011.pdf: 102 downloads, before Oct. 1, 2020

International Labor Rights Forum

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September 27, 2011 
 
Hillary Rodham Clinton 
Secretary of State  
US Department of State  
Harry S. Truman Building  
2201 C Street, NW  
Washington, DC 20520  
 
 
Dear Secretary Clinton, 
 
We represent a broad, international coalition of human rights organizations, labor groups, 
trade unions, investors, and others, including independent civil society groups based in 
Uzbekistan, brought together by our common concern over recent actions by the US 
government to move toward “business as usual” with the Uzbek government, which remains 
one of the most repressive in the world.  
 
Last week, an Appropriations Committee in the Senate approved a bill that will allow the 
provision of taxpayer-funded military and police assistance to the Uzbek government at a time 
when Uzbek authorities continue to silence civil society activists, independent journalists, and 
all political opposition; severely curtail freedom of expression and religion; and organize forced 
child labor on a massive scale.   
 
The bill, if enacted, would allow the US government to waive the restrictions on aid, including 
military aid, to the Uzbek government, which have been in place since 2004 because of 
Uzbekistan’s deplorable human rights record. 
 
We, the undersigned organizations, deplore the recent move to provide direct security 
assistance to one of the world’s most repressive governments. We call on you to stand behind 
your strong past statements regarding human rights abuses in Uzbekistan, including those 
made on the eve of your visit to Tashkent last December to meet with President Islam Karimov. 
We strongly urge you to oppose passage of the law and not to invoke this waiver. Furthermore, 
we call on you to publicly reiterate the serious concerns the US government has regarding 
Uzbekistan’s abysmal human rights record.   
 
This Wednesday, September 28, Uzbekistan’s Foreign Minister Elyor Ganiyev is scheduled to 
attend a business forum of the American-Uzbek Chamber of Commerce in Washington, DC.  
Foreign Minister Ganiyev’s visit comes just weeks after the Department of State designated 
Uzbekistan as a “country of particular concern” given its egregious and continuing violations of 
religious freedom.  The visit also coincides with the opening of the fall harvest in Uzbekistan, 
when authorities force up to two million children to pick cotton and continue to defy the 
International Labor Organization’s request to send monitors to the country to assess the 
problem.   
 
More than a dozen human rights defenders and numerous journalists and political activists are 
languishing in prison in Uzbekistan because of their work. Torture and ill-treatment are 
systematic and widespread in pretrial detention and prisons, and the Uzbek government 
persistently refuses to allow domestic and international nongovernmental organizations to 
operate in the country. 
 
Recent dramatic developments elsewhere in Central Asia and across the Middle East make clear 
that Uzbekistan’s status as a strategic partner to the United States should not be allowed to 
eclipse concerns about its appalling human rights record.   
 
As President Obama recognized in a speech on the “Arab Spring” earlier this year, “failure to 
speak to the broader aspirations of ordinary people will only feed the suspicion that has 
festered for years that the United States pursues our own interests at their expense…Societies 
held together by fear and repression may offer the illusion of stability for a time, but they are 
built upon fault lines that will eventually tear asunder.”  
 
Even before the pro-democracy protests in the Middle East, popular revulsion about corruption 
and repression in Kyrgyzstan led to the overthrow in 2010 of a neighboring Central Asian 
government, with which the US military had established a close relationship and where the 
government had seemed, at the time, just as stable as that of Uzbekistan does today.   
 
We note that President Karimov and other leaders of Uzbekistan, who benefit strategically from 
the presence of international forces in Afghanistan and financially from US payments related to 
Uzbekistan’s role in the Northern Distribution Network (NDN), have a stake in maintaining the 
NDN and the US-Uzbekistan relationship. Therefore, the US government need not—and should 
not—provide more concessions and rewards until the Uzbek government meaningfully 
addresses longstanding US concerns about its human rights record. 
 
The firm positions you have championed in the past are by far the more effective course for the 
US government. Last December, at a town hall meeting with civil society groups in Astana, 
Kazakhstan, you stated that you would raise the plight of imprisoned human rights activists in 
your upcoming meeting with President Karimov. Once in Uzbekistan, you further affirmed the 
central role human rights played in the US-Uzbekistan relationship and underscored 
Uzbekistan’s need to “translate words into practice” to improve its human rights record.   
 
Following your statements in Astana, on December 1, 2010, Uzbek authorities released a single 
imprisoned human rights activist, Farkhad Mukhtarov, from prison, where he had been serving 
a four-year sentence on politically motivated charges. Mukhtarov’s release, followed by the 
later release of Uzbek poet and dissident Yusuf Juma, demonstrates that sustained public 
pressure on human rights, coupled with diplomatic engagement, can yield positive results. 
 
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As the US government implements its policy towards Uzbekistan, it is important that you keep 
in mind that the Uzbek government is not the only audience. The Uzbek people are also 
watching closely.   
 
There is still time to change course. We therefore urge you to take the opportunity of Minister 
Ganiyev’s visit to make clear, both in private and in public, that US policies towards the Uzbek 
government will not fundamentally change absent meaningful human rights improvements, 
including the release of imprisoned pro-democracy activists, an end to harassment of civil 
society groups, effective steps to end torture, and the elimination of forced child labor in the 
cotton sector.     
 
Sincerely, 
 
 AFL-CIO 
 
  Amnesty International USA  
 
 Anti-Slavery 
 
 Association for Human  
Rights in Central Asia 
 
 Boston Common Asset  
Management, LLC 
 
 CREA 
 The Child Labor Coalition 
 
 CIVICUS 
 
European Center for  
Constitutional and Human Rights 
 
The Expert Working Group –  
     Uzbekistan 
 
  First Focus 
 
 Freedom House   
 
 Freedom Now  
       Human Rights Watch  
 
  International Crisis Group 
 
International Labor  
Rights Forum 
 
National Consumers League 
         
 Open Society Policy Center 
 
Responsible Sourcing  
Network 
 
 Uzbek-German Forum for  
Human Rights 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
SUMMARY of UZBEK GOVERNMENT POLITICAL and HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES 
 
Complete Lack of Political Freedom.  In the 20 years since Uzbekistan gained independence 
from the Soviet Union, there has not been a single election deemed even remotely “free and 
fair” by international monitoring bodies. According to Freedom House’s Freedom in the World 
2011 report, President Karimov uses “the dominant executive branch to repress all political 
opposition.” No opposition political parties are allowed to participate in the political process, 
and political opponents of President Karimov have either been forced to flee the country or are 
languishing in prison. At least thirteen human rights defenders, and numerous journalists and 
political activists are imprisoned for no reason other than their legitimate civil society activism, 
and a number of them have been subjected to torture. Uzbek authorities do not tolerate 
dissent of any kind; even tiny public demonstrations in Uzbekistan are ruthlessly suppressed.   
 
Increasingly Closed Society.  Since 2004, the government has expelled or forced the closure of 
numerous international organizations and media outlets, including Freedom House, 
Counterpart International, and the American Bar Association. It has also prevented most 
international news agencies from reporting in the country, forcing out Radio Free Europe/Radio 
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Liberty, the BBC, Deutsche Welle, and many others. In March 2011, the government closed 
Human Rights Watch’s Tashkent office, bringing to an end the 15-year-long presence of the last 
remaining international human rights monitoring organization in the country. The government 
also continues to deny access to UN Special Rapporteurs, eight of whom have sought country 
visits. There is only one active registered independent domestic human rights organization in 
the country, and those operating without registration are subject to constant harassment. 
 
Torture Remains Systematic.  As documented year after year by the U.S. State Department 
Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, a number of UN monitoring bodies, and a range of 
international organizations, torture in Uzbekistan is widespread and systematic in all stages of 
the criminal justice system, and impunity for torture is the norm. Police and security agents use 
torture and ill-treatment to coerce detainees to implicate themselves or others, and 
confessions obtained under torture are often the sole basis for convictions. Judges routinely fail 
to investigate torture allegations that defendants make when they appear before court. 
Methods used include beatings with truncheons, electric shock, hanging by wrists and ankles, 
rape and sexual humiliation, asphyxiation with plastic bags and gas masks, and threats of 
physical harm to relatives. Credible reports about suspicious deaths in custody, believed to be a 
result of ill-treatment and torture, continue to emerge.   
 
Restrictions on Freedom of Expression.  Uzbek authorities severely restrict both freedom of 
information and freedom of expression. Websites containing information on sensitive issues or 
that are critical of the government are routinely blocked within Uzbekistan. The few 
independent journalists who continue to work in the country do so at great risk and are forced 
to self-censor due to harassment and threats of imprisonment. At least ten journalists are in 
prison simply for doing their job. In the last year alone, Uzbek authorities are known to have 
used spurious criminal defamation charges to silence three journalists. Last October, Abdumalik 
Boboev, a correspondent for Voice of America, was convicted of defamation, insult, and 
preparation or dissemination of materials that threaten public security. He was fined $11,000—
a very large fine by local standards. Ironically, he had reported on restrictions on freedom of 
expression, arbitrary detentions, and unfair trials of journalists and human rights defenders. 
 
Restrictions on Freedom of Religion.  According to the U.S. Commission on International 
Religious Freedom and the U.S. State Department, the Uzbek government systematically and 
egregiously violates freedom of religion or belief and harshly penalizes individuals for 
independent religious activity, regardless of their religious affiliation. A restrictive religion law 
severely limits the rights of all religious communities and facilitates the Uzbek government’s 
control over them. Authorities continue to arrest so-called independent Muslims and repress 
individuals, groups, and mosques that do not conform to government-prescribed practices or 
that the government claims are associated with extremist political programs. This policy has 
resulted in the imprisonment of thousands of persons.  
 
The Andijan Massacre.  On May 13, 2005 Uzbek government forces fired into a crowd of mainly 
unarmed protesters in the eastern Uzbek city of Andijan, killing hundreds. Ignoring repeated 
calls from the international community, including by the Bush Administration, Senator John 
McCain, and other Members of Congress, for an independent international investigation, Uzbek 
authorities instead sought to silence criticism by launching an intense crackdown in Andijan. 
Several hundred individuals who were convicted and sentenced in closed trials in 2005 and 
2006 are believed to remain in prison serving lengthy sentences. The Uzbek government 
continues vigorously to seek out and persecute anyone it deems to have a connection to or 
information about the Andijan events. Intense government pressure—taking the form of 
interrogations, surveillance, ostracism, and in at least one case an overt threat to life—has  
continued to generate new refugees from Andijan, years after the massacre. In April 2010, 
authorities sentenced to a 10-year prison term an Andijan refugee, Diloram Abdukodirova, who 
had returned to Uzbekistan following assurances to her family that she would not be harmed. 
 
Forced Child Labor.  Forced child labor in the cotton fields remains a serious concern, despite a 
formal ban on child labor and the government’s ratification of two International Labor 
Organization (ILO) conventions against child labor. Information from throughout Uzbekistan’s 
cotton-growing regions shows that the government continues to orchestrate the mass 
mobilization of children to harvest cotton. Each autumn, with the tacit endorsement of the 
government, local authorities direct the closure of primary and secondary schools in most areas 
outside the capital city and instruct local education departments to mobilize schoolchildren to 
harvest cotton, Uzbekistan’s main export commodity. As many as two million children last 
autumn helped bring in approximately half of the country’s cotton crop. Children forced to help 
with the cotton harvest live in filthy conditions, contract illnesses, miss school, and work daily 
from early morning until evening for little or no money. Hunger, exhaustion, and heat stroke 
are common. In the meantime, the government continues to refuse access for ILO monitors. 


Civil Society Open Letter To Secretary Clinton on Human Rights and Labor Rights in Uzbekistan

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Civil Society Open Letter To Secretary Clinton on Human Rights and Labor Rights in Uzbekistan

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