Kazakhstan: Last Ditch Appeal from Uzbek Asylum Seekers Facing Extradition
A group of Uzbek asylum seekers facing extradition to Uzbekistan from Kazakhstan has appealed to human rights organizations to use the summit of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) opening in Astana today to pressure Kazakhstan, this year’s OSCE chairman, not to extradite them to Uzbekistan.
“We ask you to do your best to prevent the extradition of Uzbek refugees,” the appeal, distributed by e-mail, said, asking them to lobby for the issue to be discussed at the summit.
The appeal, dated November 25 and addressed to Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, the Human Rights in Central Asia association and the Memorial Human Rights Center was signed by 15 detainees who are among 28 arrested in June and are being held in an Almaty detention center pending an appeal against their extradition.
The asylum seekers have almost exhausted their legal options. The Kazakh Prosecutor-General’s Office has ordered their extradition to Uzbekistan, where they say they risk being tortured.
Kazakhstan is signatory to international conventions prohibiting refoulement (extradition to a country where a deportee may face torture). However, human rights organizations say regional security agreements often override such commitments for Kazakhstan – a bit of realpolitik to keep authoritarian neighboring states sweet.
Uzbekistan denies abusing detainees, but international bodies such as the UN Committee Against Torture and the European Court of Human Rights have uncovered evidence suggesting torture in detention is rife.
This group of Uzbek asylum seekers has fallen foul of a new migration law in Kazakhstan, which stopped recognizing UNHCR refugee mandates this year and requires both those with UNHCR refugee status and new applicants to apply to Kazakh migration authorities for refugee status.
In June the migration authorities rounded up the group in Almaty at Tashkent’s request. Some were released but 29 remained in custody while their applications for refugee status with the Kazakh authorities were examined. All except one application was rejected; the other 28 Uzbeks face extradition (along with another detainee who joined them in custody more recently) unless last minute appeals succeed.
The asylum seekers say they’re innocent of any crime, characterizing the charges against them in Uzbekistan as “standard accusations for persecuting believers and dissidents.” International human rights bodies agree that those practicing religion beyond the narrow boundaries of state control in Uzbekistan risk falling foul of Tashkent.
The group hopes the OSCE summit could be a platform to promote their cause. “We are shocked by the fact that all this is happening in the country which is chairing the OSCE,” the appeal says, accusing the Kazakh authorities of “openly ignoring” its own law on refugees, which prohibits extradition to a country where life or freedom is threatened on grounds of religious or ethnic affiliation.
A specially formed Committee to Save the Refugees has pledged to hold pickets in the capitals of OSCE member states including Washington, London and Paris during the summit. They’ve even promised to hold pickets in Astana, though given the tight security surrounding the gathering of world leaders, they’re unlikely to get anywhere near the delegates.
Joanna Lillis is a journalist based in Almaty and author of Dark Shadows: Inside the Secret World of Kazakhstan.
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