Uzbekistan: Authorities Threaten To Take Foster Child of Human Rights Activist

A human rights leader in Uzbekistan says she is suffering backlash for her work.

Police have come to the home of Elena Urlaeva of the Human Rights Alliance in Tashkent and attempted to remove her 7-year-old foster child, Muhammad, the independent website uznews.net reported.

The aim of the visit was quite simple: he [the policeman] said he had been asked to take Muhammad Mashurov away to a children’s home. But he didn’t show me any proof that he had the right to take a child away from their family. It never occurred to me that a small child could be made a victim of such an unlawful and arbitrary procedure.

The boy is the nephew of Urlayeva's partner, Mansur Mashurov.

In recent months, Urlayeva has been monitoring the use of forced child labor in the cotton fields and has taken on other injustices in this Central Asian dictatorship, such as the persecution of journalists.