AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL REPORT 2016/17

detainees and prisoners into confessing
crimes or incriminating others.
Judges continued to ignore or dismiss as
unfounded allegations of torture or other illtreatment,
even when presented with
credible evidence.
In February, the Dzhizakh Regional
Criminal Court convicted fish farmer Aramais
Avakian and four co-defendants of plotting
anti-constitutional activities and of
membership of an “extremist organization”.
They were sentenced to between five and 12
years in prison.
Aramais Avakian consistently denied the
charges and told the court that NSS officers
had abducted him, held him incommunicado
for a month, tortured and forced him to
confess. They broke several of his ribs and
gave him electric shocks. In court, several of
the prosecution witnesses said that NSS
officers had detained and tortured them in
order to incriminate Aramais Avakian and his
co-defendants. During the appeal hearing in
March, his co-defendant Furkat Dzhuraev
told the judge that he, too, had been tortured.
The trial and appeal judges ignored all
allegations of torture and admitted the
defendants’ forced “confessions” as evidence
against them.
COUNTER-TERROR AND SECURITY
The authorities continued to secure the
return – through extradition proceedings or
otherwise – of numerous Uzbekistani
nationals they suspected of criminal activity,
or labelled as opponents or a threat to
national security.
Forced returns
In October, the authorities said they had
secured the return of 542 individuals
between January 2015 and July 2016.
The government offered assurances to the
authorities of the sending state saying that
independent monitors and diplomats would
have free and confidential access to
extradited individuals and that they would
receive a fair trial; in reality, access was
limited. In some cases it took up to a year for
diplomats to be granted permission to see a
detainee or prisoner, and they were generally
accompanied by officials, precluding
confidential conversations.
NSS officers continued the practice of
secret renditions (abducting wanted
individuals) from abroad. In Russia, local
security services were complicit in this
practice in those rare instances when the
Russian authorities refused to comply with
extradition requests.
Those abducted or otherwise forcibly
returned were subjected to incommunicado
detention, often in undisclosed locations,
and tortured or otherwise ill-treated to force
them to confess or incriminate others. In
many cases, security forces pressured
relatives not to seek support from human
rights organizations, and not to file
complaints about alleged human rights
violations.
On 4 March, Russian intelligence officers
apprehended asylum-seeker Sarvar Mardiev
as he was released from prison in Russia and
drove him away. His whereabouts were
undisclosed until October, when the
Uzbekistan authorities confirmed that Sarvar
Mardiev was detained in Kashkadaria the day
after his release from prison in Russia. They
said he was in pre-trial detention charged
with crimes against the state. He was not
granted access to a lawyer for a month.
Persecution of family members
The authorities increased pressure on
relatives of those suspected or convicted of
crimes against the state, including individuals
working or seeking protection abroad.
The authorities used the threat of bringing
charges of membership of a banned Islamist
group against a detained relative to prevent
families from exposing human rights
violations and seeking help from human
rights organizations at home and/or abroad.
Local mahalla (neighbourhood)
committees continued to collaborate with
security forces and local and national
authorities in closely monitoring residents of
their mahallas for any signs of behaviour or
activities considered improper, suspect or
illegal. Mahalla committees publicly exposed
392 Amnesty International Report 2016/17