Uzbekistan: Activist Again in Psychiatric Ward

Human rights activist Elena Urlaeva has been admitted to a psychiatric clinic in Tashkent. 

Opposition news agency Uznews.net reports that Urlaeva’s “fellow activists” admitted her to Psychiatric Clinic Number 1 on April 5 because they were concerned about her behavior following a recent visit to Turkey. 

Urlaeva, who runs The Human Rights Alliance of Uzbekistan, had reportedly gone to Turkey to meet with the head of the People’s Movement of Uzbekistan (PMU), an umbrella group of exiled Uzbek opposition parties and activists. Upon returning, her relatives say, she wasn’t herself, became hysterical, and chanted the phrase “Allahu Akbar,” meaning “God is Great” in Arabic. Some loved ones fear her hospitalization will conveniently keep her from attending a meeting of human rights activists in Switzerland next month.

Whenever it comes to human rights in Uzbekistan, the story gets confused. On April 5, Uzmetronom, a website that often appears close to the Uzbek security services, posted an article entitled “True-believer Elena.” The article alleges that people close to Urlaeva claim she had converted to Islam while on a recent trip to Sweden. An unnamed source in the article asserts, “It was specifically that step that caused the sharp psychological break in a woman with heightened susceptibility.”

Over the past months, Urlaeva had repeatedly warned friends and fellow activists that the Uzbek authorities were attempting to discredit and detain her. On March 13, she had written a long email to human rights organizations and news agencies (including EurasiaNet.org), in which she fretted the government was trying to turn her husband against her and detain her again.

Uzbek authorities are known to lock up human rights activists and opposition politicians in psychiatric clinics on fabricated insanity charges. Urlaeva had been sentenced twice before in 2001 and 2005. In 2005, she had gone on a huger strike to protest her detention and was later confirmed sane by Russian doctors. Last August, she said she was detained and beaten by Uzbek police after investigating the case of three TV reporters who had been charged with extortion by Uzbek authorities. Urlaeva was supposed to appear in court next month for a reexamination of her sanity. While the massive stress she is under could cause psychological trauma, the timing seems particularly convenient for Uzbek authorities.

Now, Urlaeva's March 13 warning that the police were trying to turn her family against her appears prescient. Someone claiming to be Urlaeva’s adult son, whose name is only given as Denis, told Fergana, “The doctors in the clinic are great, but they still don’t know how long her treatment will take. Her state is still difficult.” It's hard to know whether this is a deliberate ruse by the authorities or a real mental breakdown. 

Urlaeva was scheduled to travel to Geneva in May to talk about the deteriorating situation for human rights in her country. She has long campaigned against forced child labor in Uzbekistan’s cotton fields and has protested repeatedly against police abuses.