The Human Rights Alliance reports that a young woman who returned home to Andijan province after studying abroad in Germany has committed suicide after being tortured in custody, according to uznews.net.
Gulsumoy Abdujalilova was found dead on December 4 in Kurgantepa district of Andijan province after being tortured for four days in police detention, Elena Urlaeva, leader of the Alliance told reporters, citing a statement from Gulsumoy's sister, Mohlara.
Mohlara says that officers of the Uzbek Interior Ministry detained her sister in November when Gulsumoy returned home from Germany, where she had been studying. She said that police demanded that she give false testimony against Muhammad Salih, exiled leader of the opposition Erk Party in Europe.
Upon learning of the unlawful detention, Urlaeva began calling the Interior Ministry's hotline and kept in touch with Mohlara, until Gulsumoy was released and returned home. They agreed that Gulsumoy would call the next day to give an account of her beatings in police custody. Urlaeva urged her to get a doctor's examination and record her injuries.
But before they could follow up, Gulsumoy took some tablets and died. Human rights advocates are concerned that she may have also been raped by police. She left a suicide note, in which she said that "police were trying to force her to murder several opposition members." No more details about the suicide note are available.
Urlaeva believes that Gulsumoy could have been referencing members of the Popular Movement of Uzbekistan (PMU) but was unable to find out anything more, as Mohlara has now stopped taking her phone calls.
The Human Rights Alliance is calling for an investigation and publication of the findings, and also demanding answers about the allegations of plans for assassination of opposition members abroad.
US Assistant Secretary of State Robert O. Blake, Jr. quietly visited Ashgabat last week before the conference on Afghanistan in Bonn, in which Turkmenistan also took part.
Lately, the Turkmen government has been putting the squeeze on Russian passport holders in Turkmenistan, trying to get them to drop their Russian papers and accept Turkmen passports to access the benefits of citizenship, including travel.
Turkmen travel agents have begun posting announcements that starting in July 2013, air tickets for destinations abroad will only be sold upon presentation of the new Turkmen international passport, Chronicles of Turkmenistan (chrono-tm.org) reports.
What this means in practice is that people with dual Russian and old Turkmen passports who try to buy tickets to Moscow at the Ashgabat airport are finding out that they cannot travel without a Russian entry visa. Students trying to travel to foreign universities may be stopped at the border and warned about a travel ban.
People with Russian passports still living in Turkmenistan are increasingly feeling the heat:
“This is another reminder that that we have to make a decision whether to renounce Russian citizenship or leave Turkmenistan for good”, – an Ashgabat resident, a dual national, told chrono-tm.org.
Already, Russians and even some Turkmens with Russian passports are leaving Turkmenistan and essentially going into exile in Russia or other neighboring states, fearful that they may be trapped in Turkmenistan without the right to travel otherwise.
Under various pretexts, Turkmen authorities have been refusing to issue new Turkmen passports to anyone who is still holding a Russian passport. In the last year, they have been demanding that applicants sign papers to renounce their Russian citizenship.
Among the many lurid stories on the British tabloid Daily Mail this weekend you might have missed this "phenomenal" deal: Lola Karimova-Tillyaeva and her husband Timur Tillyaev were able to purchase a £30 million mansion in Geneva from real estate tycoon Andrew Rosenfeld, a controversial new advisor to British Labour Party leader Ed Milliband, now leader of the opposition.
Rosenfeld paid £9million for the house four years earlier.
Craig Murray, former British ambassador to Tashkent claimed the deal "stank," because the money came from a brutal regime that "stole" from its people, says the Daily Mail.
The revelation adds to an existing controversy in the UK over the appointment of Rosenfeld, an admitted tax exile, following a £1million donation to the Labour Party, making him the party's biggest backer.
Much of Lola Karimova and her husband’s income comes from the Abu Sahiy company which controls the majority of Uzbek imports and is believed to have a turnover of £250,000 a day. The couple have been accused of orchestrating criminal action against commercial rivals.
Ms Karimova’s £30million property purchase was reported in the Swiss press last year as an example of the ‘meteorite’ which had hit local property prices as a result of an influx of money from central Asia.
The British daily The Independent has an intriguing story about a special undercover investigation: some public relations firms would be eager to accept lucrative lobbying contracts from the government of Uzbekistan, despite its horrible reputation for torture, imprisonment of dissidents, and forced child labor.
Journalists from The Independent's Bureau of Investigative Reporting posed as agents of the fictitious "Azimov Group" of British and East European investors in cotton textiles who said they had been tasked by Uzbekistan to help clean up its image.
The journalists said that out of 10 London firms, two refused to do business, several others didn't reply, and five, including Bell Pottinger appeared "keen to work" for a "£1m-plus" fee.
In the film clip accompanying the article, we hear the disguised reporter saying that the Uzbek president wasn't happy about his own Wikipedia entry or the one for Uzbekistan: what could the firm do to help? A representative of Bell Pottinger spoke of "all sorts of dark arts" that could be deployed such as Google-bombing to change the order of search results. Such firms also create fictitious blogs, manipulate parliamentarians, and -- as the agent cautioned -- do things that they couldn't put in their written presentation because if it "got out" it would be "embarrassing."
Says The Independent regarding the investigative reporters' account:
Their claims – which were secretly recorded – will add to mounting concerns that an absence of regulation has made London the global centre for "reputation laundering", where lobbyists work behind the scenes on behalf of the world's most controversial regimes.
British Prime Minister David Cameron has pledged to tackle lobbying which he says has "tainted our politics for too long."
US and European Union diplomats will be looking to reinvigorate the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe when a Ministerial Council meeting convenes in Vilnius, Lithuania, on December 6-7. High on the meeting agenda is a proposal to create a diplomatic rapid reaction team.
The state media never discusses struggles for power and changes in the leadership, so outsiders are left guessing at clues.
But a string of other dismissals indicate the prime minister's power base may be eroding, says NBCA. These include Rovshan Muhiddinov, a former advisor to President Islam Karimov who coordinated the powerful security agencies; Tursunkhon Khudoibergenov, the emergencies minister; and Muhiddin Kiyomov, Uzbekistan’s deputy chief prosecutor, all of whom were reported to have been arrested last month. Khudoibergenov was later said to be freed after signing a pledge not to leave town, Inside the Cocoon noted, citing uzmetronom.com.
Other recent high-level dismissals include Deputy Prime Minister Botir Hojaev and Fergana regional governor Hamid Nematov.
In a shocking departure from its usual docile behavior, Uzbekistan's rubber-stamp parliament took Mirziyoyev to task in July for his cabinet's performance, EurasiaNet reported. That was seen not as a democratic surge from the legislature but rather orchestrated "from on high". Those fired also seem to be figures who were Mirziyoyev's allies.
No other news service, including the semi-official uzmetronom.com which often gets government leaks, seems to have the story NBCA has published:
"It’s possible Mirziyoev will be removed," a high-ranking official in government who wished to remain anonymous said. "He knows too much, and over his many years in office, he’s promoted many of his own supporters."
Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs Robert O. Blake, Ashgabat, February 2011
Assistant Secretary of State Robert O. Blake, Jr. quietly visited Ashgabat last week to meet with President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov before the conference on Afghanistan in Bonn, and to attend a ministerial meeting on terrorism co-organized by the UN Counter Terrorism Initiative Task Force, the European Union and the UN Regional Center for Preventive Diplomacy in Central Asia.
In his speech at the meeting Blake spoke of Central Asia's Joint Plan of Action under the UN's Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy, emphasizing the importance of human rights compliance while fighting terrorism:
The Joint Plan of Action includes a commitment to abide by and uphold the core values, including respect for human rights and the rule of law, that are too often compromised in efforts to combat terrorism. This is a very important point, because counterterrorism efforts can best succeed when they place respect for human rights and the rule of law front and center. Abusive and extra-legal behavior often only make the terrorism situation worse in the long-term, and it is important in our zeal to protect our citizens that we do not weaken their legal rights and protections.
Blake's remarks came on the eve of an unfortunate development at home tending to undercut his message, as the US Senate voted for the defense re-authorization act but failed to uphold the principle that American citizens arrested in the US in the war on terror shouldn't be subject to indefinite military detention on the president's order.
The Swiss journal Bilan just published its list of the 300 most rich people in Switzerland in the past year -- and both President Islam Karimov's sensational daughters are still on it, but they've lost some of their riches.
According to the Russian-language Swiss news sit nashagazeta.ch, last year the controversial Gulnara Karimova, Uzbekistan's ambassador to Spain and UN organizations in Geneva, took third place among the wealthiest women in Switzerland, reported fergananews.com
It looks like you have to buy a copy of Bilan at the newstand to see the whole list, but apparently this year Gulnara is tied with her sister Lola Karimova-Tillyaeva, Uzbekistan's ambassador to UNESCO in Paris. What with Lola's failed libel lawsuit -- leaving the journalist who called her a "dictator's daughter" vindicated -- and Gulhara's flopped fashion show in Manhattan, the Karimovs may have had some unrecovered expenses this year. The pair have lost $200 million between them since last year, but are still worth $1 billion, says nashagazeta.ch
Other high rollers on the list include Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev's daughter Dinara Kulibayeva.
