Karakalpakstan. request for information to Commissioner for Human Rights of the Oliy Majlis of the Republic of Uzbekistan

On 25 Feb­ru­ary 2023 Free­dom for Euras­ia for­war­ded a request for inform­a­tion to the Com­mis­sion­er for Human Rights of the Oliy Majl­is of the Repub­lic of Uzbek­istan, and the Head of the Com­mis­sion for the Study of Events in Karakalpak­stan in July 2022 Ms. Esh­matova Fer­uza Fark­hodovna. The ques­tions included in the inform­a­tion request are as follows:

1. Accord­ing to media reports, on July 4, 2022, at a brief­ing with the par­ti­cip­a­tion of rep­res­ent­at­ives of the Pro­sec­utor Gen­er­al’s Office and the Nation­al Guard of Uzbek­istan, the fol­low­ing fig­ures were announced for per­sons injured dur­ing the events of 1–2.07.2022: 243 people were injured (not count­ing the dead), includ­ing 38 law enforce­ment officers. How­ever, in the later mater­i­als of the crim­in­al case on the “Group 22” it is noted that only 164 civil­ians and 180 law enforce­ment officers were injured. What is the reas­on for the reduc­tion in the estim­ated num­ber of wounded civil­ians from 205 to 164?

2. A sim­il­ar decrease in the num­bers took place for the dead. On July 4, a rep­res­ent­at­ive of the Pro­sec­utor Gen­er­al’s Office told the press about 18 dead, on July 18 — that three more people died as a res­ult of ser­i­ous injur­ies. Based on this inform­a­tion, many media wrote about 21 dead. How­ever, the mater­i­als of the crim­in­al case on the “group 22” refer to 19 dead. What cases and for what reas­on were excluded from this list?

3. On July 4, 2022, the com­mand­er of the Nation­al Guard, Rustam Jur­aev, told report­ers about the four dead law enforce­ment officers. The same fig­ure was repeated two days later in Nukus by the rep­res­ent­at­ive of the com­mand­ant’s office Zafar Alimov. How­ever, as can be seen from the mater­i­als of the case of the “group of 22” among the employ­ees of the “law enforce­ment agen­cies” there were no deaths. Does this mean that the state­ments of Jur­aev and Alimov were based on fake information? 

4. Why are some well-doc­u­mented cases related to the death of civil­ians not included in the list of the dead attached to the mater­i­als of the crim­in­al case of “group 22”? For example, the case of Alish­er Daribayev, who was fatally wounded with a bul­let on July 2, 2022 near the “Svet­lana” mar­ket in Nukus, when he left the house to buy food. After his father­’s com­plaints, Daribayev’s body was exhumed in Septem­ber, later the fam­ily received mater­i­al assist­ance from state bod­ies. Even if his name was included in the list after the com­ple­tion of the invest­ig­a­tion against the “group 22”, it is not clear why in Decem­ber 2022 the Gen­er­al Pro­sec­utor’s Office of Uzbek­istan still repor­ted 19 dead to the com­mis­sion headed by you?

5. Non-gov­ern­ment­al organ­iz­a­tions have received reports of approx­im­ately 50 deaths due to injur­ies sus­tained dur­ing the events of 1 to 2 July in Karakalpak­stan. This is sig­ni­fic­antly high­er than the offi­cially repor­ted death toll of 19. Some of these names, which are not on the offi­cial list, were pre­vi­ously pub­lished. In the annex to the let­ter, we send you the names of 33 people who died allegedly dur­ing the unrest, but were not included in the offi­cial list. Does the com­mis­sion have any inform­a­tion about the fate of these people?

6.  Does the Com­mis­sion have data on how many of the total num­ber of fatal­it­ies died as a res­ult of use of fire­arms and spe­cial equip­ment by gov­ern­ment forces?

7.  Does the com­mis­sion have data on cases of dis­ap­pear­ance of cit­izens in Karakalpak­stan in early July 2022?

8.  Dur­ing the tri­al in case of “group 22”, Dauletmur­at Tazhimur­atov described in detail the tor­ture to which he was sub­jec­ted in Karakalpak­stan after his deten­tions on July 1 and 4, 2022, and also repor­ted on the death from tor­ture of his friends Ruslan Ibra­gimov and Madi­yar Orazbayev. Is an invest­ig­a­tion being car­ried out into these facts?

9. There are wide­spread rumours among the pop­u­la­tion of Karakalpak­stan about the dis­cov­ery in early August of a large num­ber of male bod­ies with their hands tied under the Kyzketken Bridge, which may have been allegedly cases of extraju­di­cial exe­cu­tions related to the events of 1–2.07. Does the com­mis­sion have this inform­a­tion and has it been verified?

10. Does the com­mis­sion have inform­a­tion about cases of rape of women and girls detained by law enforce­ment officers in July 2022 in Karakalpak­stan in con­nec­tion with invest­ig­a­tions and inspec­tions related to the events that occurred? We would be very grate­ful for assist­ance in obtain­ing answers to these ques­tions, giv­en the inter­na­tion­al atten­tion to the top­ic and the repeated state­ments of the rep­res­ent­at­ives of Uzbek­istan on the coun­try’s adher­ence to inter­na­tion­al agree­ments in the field of human rights and the open­ness of judi­cial pro­ceed­ings related to the events of July 1–2, 2022 in the Karakalpakstan.