A rare occasion indeed -- a political prisoner in Uzbekistan has reached the end of his term and been released on schedule -- without being slapped with a fresh sentence as has been repeatedly the case with others.
Rashid Bekzhan, brother of Muhammad Salih, the leader of the opposition party Erk, and a member of Erk himself served 12 years from the time of his arrest on February 18, 1999, fergananews.com reported, citing the Uzbek Committee to Free Prisoners of Conscience.
The Committee says it was touch and go -- right before the expiration of his sentence, Bekzhan was thrown in a punishment cell and it was feared that he might meet the same fate as many others, who have been tried in closed prison proceedings for alleged disciplinary infractions and handed new terms.
It's hard to know what made the difference in Bekzhan's case. Possibly, mindful of the revolutions in the Middle East, in part stirred by the unfair jail sentences of authoritarian regimes, the Uzbek authorities decided to let this one go, says fergananews.com. Perhaps they felt Bekzhan might be subdued after so long a term. Perhaps it's a token gesture to EU and US officials who have been quietly raising prisoners' cases, but it is not certain they raised this one.
Bekzhan was arrested two days after a series of mysterious explosions in Tashkent, for which the Uzbek government blamed both the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan and the once-registered Erk Party. Salih, who once ran against President Islam Karimov in elections, was in exile in Norway by that time, and three of his brothers were arrested, apparently in retaliation against his opposition. Two brothers, Rashid and Kamil, were arrested in Uzbekistan, but a third, Muhammad Bekzhan, had to be extradited from Ukraine, where he had settled with his family. All three were tried and sentenced to lengthy terms.
Kamil Bekzhan was the first to be amnestied in 2003, possibly because he was the most remote from any political activity, mainly occupied with his farm. Rashid Bekzhan was released about a month after the end of his sentence.
The last political prisoner to be released, Sanjar Umarov, head of the opposition Sunshine movement, was sentenced to 14 years, tortured, amnestied in 2009 after 4 years and forced to move to the United States. So it is hardly likely that Rashid Bekzhan will be able to resume any opposition activity freely.
The Committee says there are 39 such prisoners of conscience in Uzbekistan, including some who were alleged to have been members of the banned radical Islamic group Hizb-ut-Tahir. There are in fact thousands of people arrested on charges of threatening the constitutional order or membership in an extremist group who have been tried and sentenced, and in many cases tortured. While even the state does not appear to charge them with incitement or cause of violence, very little is known about their cases, tried behind closed doors, and human rights groups have only put cases on their lists that they can verify.
International human rights groups have even shorter lists of prisoners of conscience for Uzbekistan, but they acknowledge that it is impossible to get information. Human Rights Watch was forced to close its office in Tashkent after years of having difficulty getting visas for its staff.
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