Uznews, Samarkand, 26 Feb 2009 – On 25 February, the Samarkand town court issued a warrant to arrest Tashkent-based journalist Dilmurod Sayid who is accused of extortion by the Samarkand town prosecutor’s office.
His lawyer Ruhiddin Kamilov could not manage to attend the hearings in the Samarkand court because the court had forgotten to notify Kamilov about the hearings and because of this only the prosecution was able to state its position that it had opened a criminal case against the journalist under Article 165 of the Criminal Code “extortion”.
Kamilov believes that the court had no grounds to issue the arrest warrant because the authorities are punishing him for defending the rights of farmers in Samarkand Region who faced land seizures.
He called Sayid’s detention absurd because he was an honest and decent person who fought for restoring justice in Uzbekistan.
Sayid was detained in Tashkent on 22 February and taken to Samarkand where a certain Marguba Jurayeva who was detained while she was receiving $10,000 claimed that she had done this on his orders.
“This is a pretext to imprison another independent journalist,” Kamilov said.
“We will prove his innocence at the trial if the court is independent and does not simply read out a ruling sent from on high,” he added.
Dilmurod Sayid has worked for a number of newspapers in Uzbekistan such as Advokat-Press, Darakchi and Kihslok Hayoti. After leaving these publications he started writing for independent publications and working with Ezgulik.
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