Uznews.net, Tashkent, 08 Aug 2008 – Hooliganism charges brought by the Samarkand police against three journalists and human rights activists who actually were victims of an attack show the growing amorality of the Islam Karimov regime.
Kamiljon Ashurov, 51-year-old head of Samarkand’s Centre for Human Rights Initiatives, has been in bed for two days.
He complains about pains and inability to visit his friends and colleagues from the Ovozi Tojik (Tajik Voice) newspaper Zohir Hasanzoda and Pardakul Turakulov who, like him, were attacked by a large group of women on 5 August. Their conditions are so serious that they were taken to hospital.
Ashurov said that Pardakul Turakulov, 60, was receiving treatment at Samarkand’s Intensive Care Centre and that he was suffering from aches in his kidneys and had blood in his urine. “Pardakul is a slim man, so the women seem to damage his kidneys,” Ashurov said.
Meanwhile, Zohir Hasanzoda is in the Samarkand District hospital because of pains in his heart, all over his body and stress.
All three men are also worried about a criminal case launched against them by the Samarkand town police department under Article 277, Part of the Criminal Code “hooliganism by a group of individuals” which threatens them with a three-year imprisonment each.
They are charged with beating up two women called Dilnavoz Mirmuhammedova and Salomat Hamroyeva, who have 18 witnesses saying that the men attacked them but failing to specify where.
The police department’s investigator Bayram Aliyev again questioned Kamiljon Ashurov on 6 August and the other two men in hospital on 7 August. Now, the three men have to meet Mirmuhammedova and Hamroyeva in person.
This is a usual tactic used by Uzbek police against human rights activists and journalists when the regime used women against dissidents. Such women whom people dubbed as “feral cats of Karimov” have repeatedly beaten up human rights activists, journalists and opposition members in Tashkent and other regions of the country.
However, the latest Samarkand case shows the greater moral degradation and mutation of the Uzbek government, which this time did not limit itself to violent attack but also launched a criminal case against the victims.
Ashurov said that on 5 August he and his colleagues went to the central Siab market to investigate complaints they had received from market traders about the market’s reconstruction and people about weight cheating.
When they left the market they were attacked by a group of women, Ashurov said, who were stopped by police officers who took the three men to a nearby police station. However, later women stormed into the police station and beat the men up there after which they were taken to hospital.
“We are shocked by the incident,” Ashurov said. “We are shocked by the cynicism and barbarity of the government and its blatant lie. We are depressed about this taking place in our country, in our town.”
It was impossible 10 or 12 years ago to see women attack strangers at night in the ancient town of Samarkand, or Muslim women swearing at and beating up men of their fathers’ age.
Today, it seems that the Uzbek authorities do not have problems with finding such women – there are many of them. The monstrous and amoral system of Islam Karimov produced them by thousands and is now trying to destroy the beautiful Samarkand, the ancient Siab market and the town’s best people.
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