Uznews, Tashkent, 01 Aug 2008 – The German Foreign Ministry has said that Germany will step in to release Karakalpak journalist Salijon Abdurahmanov when it will establish that the reason for his arrest was his journalistic activities.
The German Foreign Ministry’s special envoy for Eastern Europe, Central Asia and Caucasus Hans-Dieter Lucas has said that his ministry knows and is following the situation around Uznews.net’s correspondent in Karakalpakstan Salijon Abdurahmanov who was arrested in Nukus on 7 June.
However, he said that Germany needed to collect more information about this case and that if it turned out that Abdurahmanov was arrested because of his journalistic activities, Germany would call for his release at negotiations between Uzbekistan and the EU.
Lucas’s statement came as a response to President of Uzbekistan Press Freedom Group Achim Ferrari’s letter to German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier. The group is registered in Germany and is the founder of Uznews.net.
In his letter, Ferrari asked Merkel and Steinmeier to help release journalist Abdurahmanov using bilateral relations in the military sphere and a human rights dialogue with the EU.
Abdurahmanov’s family was surprised at the German Foreign Ministry’s response and said that if it needed more information about the case it could have contacted the family and the journalist’s lawyer directly.
The journalist’s lawyer Bahrom Abdurahmanov, who is his brother, said that the seizure of his journalistic materials during the search operation in his house evidently pointed to the fact that drugs were a pretext because the authorities were interested only in his journalistic activities.
The lawyer said that in his practice he had never come across drug cases in which investigators were interested in computers or other data carriers of those suspected of storing or selling drugs.
That investigators have not taken fingerprints left on packets of drugs found in the journalist’s car raise suspicions, says the lawyer and insists on identifying people who might have touched Salijon’s car.
Salijon Abdurahmanov was the only independent journalist in Karakalpakstan thanks to him the world could learn about the lives of Karakalpaks, his colleague said.
“Since his arrest Karakalpakstan has turned into a ‘black hole’,” his colleague said. “It is pity that Germany is hesitating whether it should or not defend the journalist.”
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