July, 01 2011, 12:28pm EDT
Uzbekistan: Attempt to Silence Criticism Backfires
French Court Case Shines Spotlight on Tashkent’s Repression
PARIS
The decision by a French court on July 1, 2011, to dismiss a defamation suit brought by the daughter of Uzbekistan's president against an online French news agency highlighted Uzbekistan's repressive approach to criticism, Human Rights Watch said today.
The Press Court in Paris dismissed the lawsuit brought by Lola Karimova, daughter of President Islam Karimov, against Rue89. Karimova had sought moral damages against Rue89 for a May 2010 article that called her the daughter of "dictator Karimov," and alleged she was "whitewashing Uzbekistan's image" through charity events.
"Uzbekistan is widely known for its atrocious human rights record, including repression of free speech," said Mihra Rittmann, Central Asia researcher at Human Rights Watch. "Political figures like Karimova should never be able to abuse defamation laws to silence open and critical debate about government actions."
Uzbek authorities use spurious defamation suits to silence journalists and otherwise threaten and harass them. Two Tashkent television journalists who protested against censorship and corruption were fired, detained, and fined, and are currently on hunger strike.
Karimova filed the suit in August 2010, seeking EUR30,000 (US$43,000) in damages over an article with the headline, "AIDS: Uzbekistan Cracks Down at Home but Puts on Show at Cannes." The article says that Karimova paid the actress Monica Bellucci EUR190,000 (US$272,000) to appear at a charity event.
The defamation hearing took place on May 19. Two well-known exiled human rights defenders from Uzbekistan testified for the defense. They are Mutabar Tojibaeva, a former political prisoner and head of the Uzbek human rights group Burning Hearts Club, and Nadejda Atayeva, head of the France-based human rights organization Human Rights in Central Asia. In her testimony, Tojibaeva gave a detailed description of her repeated ill-treatment, including sexual violence, during her imprisonment in Uzbekistan from 2005 to 2008.
"Uzbek authorities have repeatedly convicted journalists in Uzbekistan on spurious defamation charges for nothing more than writing articles perceived to be critical or insulting," Rittmann said. "It would have been a terrible miscarriage of justice if Paris' Press Court had not dismissed outright the defamation charges against Rue89."
President Karimov's government has a well-documented record of serious human rights violations, including severe political repression. Torture and ill-treatment are systematic in the criminal justice system. Opposition political parties cannot operate freely in Uzbekistan, and there has not been a single election since Uzbekistan's independence in 1991 that international observers found to be free or fair.
More than a dozen human rights defenders and other civil society activists are in prison on fabricated charges, many of them in ill-health because of poor prison conditions. Other activists face threats and harassment. The government severely restricts freedom of expression. In a speech marking Uzbekistan's Press and Media Day on June 27, Karimov cited the need to strengthen the environment for the media and to develop transparency laws, and noted the growing importance of the internet. Yet in practice, independent journalists are persecuted, detained, and tried on spurious criminal defamation charges that carry the prospect of prison time and huge fines. Websites containing information on sensitive issues or that are critical of the government are routinely blocked within Uzbekistan.
The two Tashkent-based television journalists were detained outside the presidential administration building on the day the president made his speech. The journalists, Saodat Omonova and Malokhat Eshankulova, had held up posters announcing the start of a hunger strike to protest censorship and corruption in Uzbekistan's national television and the fact that their repeated requests to meet with the president had gone ignored. They were held for five hours and fined for holding an unsanctioned picket.
On May 5, police detained a Tashkent-based journalist, Vasiliy Markov, and his colleague, Ruslan Karimov, in the Kashkadarya region where they had gone to investigate reports of suicides linked to a lack of jobs. Police held them for 10 hours, then expelled them from the area by putting them in a taxi back to Tashkent.
On October 15, 2010, the Voice of America correspondent, Abdumalik Boboev, was convicted of defamation, insult, and preparation or dissemination of materials that threaten public security, and fined approximately US$11,000. In the same month, another Tashkent-based journalist, Vladimir Berezovskii, was convicted of similar charges for articles published on the Vesti.uz website.
Omonova and Eshankulova had been speaking out since August 2010 against censorship and corruption at Yoshlar ("Youth"), a national television station where they worked.
On December 6, in an effort to call attention to the issue, they held a protest at Independence Square in Tashkent. Three days later they were fired. In late December, they sued the television station for firing them without cause. On May 31, the court ruled in the television station's favor. Omonova and Eshonkulova have appealed the ruling. They have repeatedly sent letters to the president about their concerns, but received no response.
Omonova told Human Rights Watch that in the June 27 episode, plainclothes police and national security agents surrounded them within minutes after they held up their posters. The police took them to the Yakkasarai district police station, where they were questioned and made to write an explanatory note.
Five hours later they were taken to the Yakkasarai District Court and each fined 60 times the minimum wage (US$1700). The judge ignored their requests to postpone the hearing so their lawyer could be present, and found them in violation of article 201 of the Uzbek Administrative Code for "violating the order of holding meetings, rallies, marches or demonstrations." The hearing lasted approximately 15 minutes. They remain on a hunger strike.
Human Rights Watch is one of the world's leading independent organizations dedicated to defending and protecting human rights. By focusing international attention where human rights are violated, we give voice to the oppressed and hold oppressors accountable for their crimes. Our rigorous, objective investigations and strategic, targeted advocacy build intense pressure for action and raise the cost of human rights abuse. For 30 years, Human Rights Watch has worked tenaciously to lay the legal and moral groundwork for deep-rooted change and has fought to bring greater justice and security to people around the world.
LATEST NEWS
Amid Spying Fight, House Passes Fourth Amendment Is Not For Sale Act
"As FANFSA and the 702 reauthorization move to the Senate, lawmakers in that chamber need to take a stand for the rights of people in the United States," said one advocate.
Apr 17, 2024
While applauding the U.S. House of Representatives' bipartisan passage of a bill to ensure that "law enforcement and intelligence agencies can't do an end-run around the Constitution by buying information from data brokers" on Wednesday, privacy advocates highlighted that Congress is trying to extend and expand a long-abused government spying program.
The House voted 219-199 for Fourth Amendment Is Not For Sale Act (FANFSA), which won support from 96 Democrats and 123 Republicans, including the lead sponsor, Rep. Warren Davidson (R-Ohio). Named for the constitutional amendment that protects against unreasonable searches and seizures, H.R. 4639 would close what campaigners call the data broker loophole.
"The privacy violations that flow from law enforcement entities circumventing the Fourth Amendment undermine civil liberties, free expression, and our ability to control what happens to our data," said Free Press Action policy counsel Jenna Ruddock. "These impacts affect everyone who uses digital platforms that extract our personal information any time we open a browser or visit social media and other websites—even when we go to events like demonstrations and other places with our phones revealing our locations."
"We're grateful that the House passed these vital and popular protections," she added. "The bill would prevent flagrant abuses of our privacy by government authorities in league with unscrupulous third-party data brokers. Making this legislation into law with Senate passage too would be a decisive and long-overdue action against government misuse of this clandestine business sector that traffics in our personal data for profit."
Wednesday's vote followed the House sending the Reforming Intelligence and Securing America Act to the Senate. H.R. 7888 would reauthorize Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which allows for warrantless spying on noncitizens abroad but also sweeps up Americans' data.
The House notably included an amendment forcing a wide range of individuals and businesses to cooperate with government spying operations but rejected an amendment that would have added a warrant requirement to the bill, which the Senate could vote on as soon as Thursday.
Noting those decisions on the FISA reauthorization legislation, Ruddock stressed that "today's vote is a victory but follows a recent loss and ongoing threat as that Section 702 bill moves to the Senate this week too."
"As FANFSA and the 702 reauthorization move to the Senate, lawmakers in that chamber need to take a stand for the rights of people in the United States," she argued. "That means passing FANFSA and reforming Section 702 authority—and prioritizing everyone's First and Fourth Amendment rights."
Jeramie Scott, senior counsel and director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center's Project on Surveillance Oversight, also praised the House's FANFSA passage on Wednesday.
"The passage of the Fourth Amendment Is Not For Sale underscores the extent to which reining in abusive warrantless surveillance is a bipartisan issue," Scott said. "We urge the Senate to take up this measure and close the data broker loophole."
Kia Hamadanchy, senior policy counsel at ACLU, similarly said Wednesday that "the bipartisan passage of this bill is a flashing warning sign to the government that if it wants our data, it must get a warrant."
Hamadanchy added that "we hope this vote puts a fire under the Senate to protect their constituents and rein in the government's warrantless surveillance of Americans, once and for all."
Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), a critic of the pending 702 bill and FANFSA's lead sponsor in the upper chamber, called the the House's Wednesday vote "a huge win for privacy" and said that "now it's time for the Senate to follow suit."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Leaked Cables Show Biden Pressuring Nations to Oppose Palestine's UN Membership
"This is the evidence that President Biden's talk about a two-state solution is nothing but idle talk," said one former Lebanese diplomat.
Apr 17, 2024
As the United Nations Security Council prepares to vote Thursday on Palestine's bid to become a full U.N. member, the Biden administration—which claims to support Palestinian statehood—is lobbying UNSC nations in an effort to wrangle enough "no" votes so that the United States can avoid resorting to a veto.
Leaked cables obtained by The Intercept show U.S. pressure on Security Council members including Malta—which currently presides over the body—and Ecuador.
While claiming that President Joe Biden backs "Palestinian aspirations for statehood," one of the cables asserts that "it remains the U.S. view that the most expeditious path toward a political horizon for the Palestinian people is in the context of a normalization agreement between Israel and its neighbors."
"We therefore urge you not to support any potential Security Council resolution recommending the admission of 'Palestine' as a U.N. member state, should such a resolution be presented to the Security Council for a decision in the coming days and weeks," the document advises.
The U.S. argument essentially is that the U.N. should not create an independent Palestinian state by fiat—even though that's precisely how the world body voted in 1947 to establish the modern state of Israel.
The renewed push for Palestine's U.N. membership comes as Israel wages a genocidal war on the Gaza Strip. The Palestinian Authority, which hasn't controlled Gaza for nearly two decades, rejected the Biden administration's requests to hold off on seeking full membership.
"We wanted the U.S. to provide a substantive alternative to U.N. recognition. They didn't," one unnamed Palestinian official toldAxios on Wednesday. "We believe full membership in the U.N. for Palestine is way overdue. We have waited more than 12 years since our initial request."
As The Intercept's Ken Klippenstein and Daniel Boguslaw noted:
Since 2011, the U.N. Security Council has rejected the Palestinian Authority's request for full member status. On April 2, the Palestinian Observer Mission to the U.N. requested that the council once again take up consideration of its membership application. According to the first State Department cable, U.N. meetings since the beginning of April suggest that Algeria, China, Guyana, Mozambique, Russia, Slovenia, Sierra Leone, and Malta support granting Palestine full membership to the U.N. It also says that France, Japan, and Korea are undecided, while the United Kingdom will likely abstain from a vote.
Along with the United States, China, France, Russia, and the United Kingdom are permanent members of the UNSC, so they also have veto power.
Ahead of Thursday's planned vote, Spain has been doing its own lobbying in Europe to build greater support for Palestinian statehood. At a joint Tuesday press conference with Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, Slovenian Prime Minister Robert Golob said the question is "when, not if, but when is the best moment to recognize Palestine."
Belgium—which is seeking economic sanctions against Israel in response to its genocidal war on Gaza—is expected to join Spain's push for Palestinian statehood after the country's European Union presidency expires in June.
Currently, 139 of the U.N.'s 193 member states recognize Palestine as an independent state.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu—who has also claimed to support a so-called "two-state solution"—has alternately boasted about thwarting Palestinian statehood.
Critics pointed to the leaked cables as more proof of U.S. duplicity and double standards on the Israel-Palestine issue.
"This is the evidence that President Biden's talk about a two-state solution is nothing but idle talk," Massoud Maalouf, a former Lebanese ambassador to Canada, Chile, and Poland, said on social media.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Database Exposes 'Illicit Network Undermining Democracy Around the World'
Yanis Varoufakis hailed the effort as "a treasure chest of well-researched reports on how the reactionaries of the world unite."
Apr 17, 2024
"Coups. Assassinations. Riots. Detentions. Disinformation. We know the tactics that have been deployed to undermine our democracies. But who is behind them?"
Progressive International (PI) asks and answers this and other questions with an extensive new database published Wednesday that connects the dots in what the leftist group calls the "Reactionary International"—a loose global network of right-wing leaders and organizations working to subvert democratic institutions.
PI calls it an "illicit network undermining democracy around the world."
"Today is a mask-off moment for the Reactionary International and the parties, politicians, judges, journalists, foundations, think tanks, tech platforms, NGOs, activists, financiers, and entrepreneurs that comprise it," PI said.
"After a year of preparation, we finally open the doors to our new research consortium, exposing the global network of reactionary forces that corrode our democracies, destroy our planet, and drive us closer to world war," the group added.
"The twin insurrections at the U.S. Capitol in 2021 and Brasília's Three Powers Plaza in 2023 left no doubt about the international coordination of reactionary forces," PI argued. "Yet far too little is known about the entities of this network, their sources of financing, and their institutional allies operating inside our political systems."
Ultimately, PI aims to "support democratic systems to become more resilient to their insidious tactics."
From leaders like Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and former U.S. President Donald Trump—the presumptive 2024 Republican presidential nominee—to evangelical Christian groups influencing laws in African countries criminalizing LGBTQ+ people and tech companies empowering ubiquitous state surveillance, Reactionary International is a who's-who of the world's right-wing forces.
A cursory search of the database's contents shows users can:
- Learn about Israel's NSO, Rayzone, and Team Jorge, and how a team of Tel Aviv tech entrepreneurs fuel unrest in Latin America;
- Meet the Grey Wolves, Turkey's roving death squad with links to President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and the ethno-nationalists in his governing coalition; and
- Explore the global network of the Falun Gong, its Trump-connected media outlet The Epoch Times, and its traveling dance troupe known as Shen Yun.
Yanis Varoufakis, a PI member and secretary-general of the left-wing Democracy in Europe Movement 2025, called the database "a treasure chest of well-researched reports on how the reactionaries of the world unite."
PI invites the public to contribute to the database.
"Together, we will not only name, shame, and expose the forces of the far right—but also dismantle their network of complicity," the group said.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular