DUSHANBE — The chief editor of an independent Tajik newspaper says he and his relatives were beaten by unknown attackers while going to celebrate Eid al-Fitr, RFE/RL’s Tajik Service reports.

Khurshed Atovullo, editor of the weekly «Farazh,» told RFE/RL he was driving to a friend’s home in Dushanbe on August 31 when a car blocked the road and forced him to stop.

Three people armed with clubs then attacked him, his brother, and his brother-in-law, who were with him.

Atovullo added that at least four more people waiting for them in Dushanbe’s Zarafshon-2 district joined the first group of assailants. He said the men did not give a reason for the attack.

Qaysiddin Aliev, the officer on duty in Dushanbe’s Sino-2 police station, said his station took a statement from Atovullo about the attack. Aliev added that Atovullo was sent for a medical check-up and the police were waiting for the results before launching an investigation.

Aliev said it should be easy to detain the attackers because Atovullo saw the license-plate number of the assailants’ car.

Nuriddin Qarshiboev, the head of National Association of Independent Media of Tajikistan, deplored the attack on Atovullo.

Qarshiboev said if there was evidence that Atovullo was beaten for being a journalist then the association would offer him legal advice.

«Farazh» and two other independent weeklies were effectively closed down for three weeks in October after not being allowed to use any printing facilities, reportedly on orders from government officials displeased by what they called «aggressive» coverage of military operations in the eastern Rasht Valley last year.

The U.S., British, French, and German ambassadors and the head of a European Union delegation cited that printing-access deprivation when expressing concerns to the Tajik Foreign Ministry in the fall about the state of media freedom in the country.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Davlat Nazriev told RFE/RL late last year that the government did not issue a ban on the printing of the newspapers. The pressure on «Farazh» was subsequently lifted.

In April, a legal dispute between three Supreme Court judges and three independent newspapers — including «Farazh» — was settled out of court after more than a year of dispute.

The case began in January 2010 when the newspapers «Ozodagon,» «Farazh,» and «Asia Plus» published a statement by lawyer Solehjon Juraev accusing the Supreme Court of corruption.

Atovullo was also attacked and nearly killed by unknown attackers in 1995 when he worked as a journalist.

http://www.rferl.org/content/tajik_editor_attacked_in_dushanbe/24314137.html

ENG: http://en.rsf.org/no-one-shall-be-subjected-to-30-08-2011,40875.html

FRA: http://fr.rsf.org/nul-ne-sera-soumis-a-une-30-08-2011,40874.html?var_mode=calcul

«No one shall be subjected to enforced disappearance»

As the world marks International Day of the Disappeared today, Reporters Without Borders notes that many countries are still violating international law on this matter, including the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance, which the UN General Assembly adopted in 2006.

Reporters Without Borders calls for the universal ratification of this convention, which has so far been signed by 91 countries and ratified by 29. Combating enforced disappearance is vital in the struggle against dictatorships and arbitrary rule.

Enforced disappearance includes both secret imprisonment and secret house arrest, in which the families of the victims are denied any information about their fate or where they are being held. It is a form of abduction and sometimes ends in murder.

It is a radical method of oppression in which human rights defenders, opposition activists, free speech activists and independent journalists are removed from society because they are often on the front line of the struggle against authoritarian regimes. As well censoring calls for freedom and justice, dictatorships target those who make the calls.

Enforced disappearances, which contravene international law and often the law of the countries where they take place, must be condemned firmly. Without an effective struggle against this evil, without binding measures that require respect for the basic legal rules on arrest and detention, any improvement in fundamental freedoms is impossible. The widespread or systematic practice of enforced disappearance is a crime against humanity. The prosecution of those responsible should be a priority.

Article 2 of the convention defines “enforced disappearance” as “the arrest, detention, abduction or any other form of deprivation of liberty by agents of the state or by persons or groups of persons acting with the authorization, support or acquiescence of the state, followed by a refusal to acknowledge the deprivation of liberty or by concealment of the fate or whereabouts of the disappeared person, which place such a person outside the protection of the law.”

Iran and China have turned enforced disappearance into a favoured method of censoring free speech. The uprisings in Libya and Syria have led to extra-judicial arrests of many journalists. Mexico has many cases of unsolved disappearances of journalists. The inhumane prison conditions in Eritrea, a small country forgotten by the international community, must be condemned. And finally, disappearances are also common in Pakistan, the world’s most dangerous country for journalists. Reporters Without Borders highlights several key cases below.

IRAN

Human rights and pro-democracy activist Pirouz Davani, editor of the paper Pirouz, vanished in late August 1998. The paper Kar-e-Karagar said on 28 November that year he had been executed. Akbar Ganji, of Sobh-é-Emrouz, who was investigating the case, confirmed this in late November 2000 and accused the then prosecutor of the special ecclesiastical court, Mohseni Ejehi, (the current prosecutor-general) of being involved in his death. The judiciary has not investigated.

Journalist Kouhyar Goudarzi has been held in secret since 1 August 2011 for unknown reasons and justice officials have not said where he is being held.

CHINA

Human rights campaigner Govruud Huuchinhuu, of the Southern Mongolian Democratic Alliance (SMDA), has been missing since she was released on 27 January 2011 from Tongliao hospital (通辽), Inner Mongolia (northern China), where she was being treated for cancer. She had been under house arrest since November 2010 for urging online that Mongolian dissidents celebrate the release of journalist and cyberdissident Hada, who heads the SDMA and defends China’s Mongolian minority. Officials say he was freed after more than 15 years at the end of his sentence on 10 December 2010 but he is still in prison. There has been no news of him for several weeks.

PAKISTAN

Journalist Rehmatullah Darpakhel was kidnapped in North Waziristan on 11 August 2011.

SRI LANKA

Prageeth Ekneligoda, journalist and cartoonist with Lankaenews, vanished in Colombo on 24 January 2010. No progress has been made in efforts to find him.

ERITREA

Most of the 30 or so journalists in prison are considered to have disappeared because of the problems of finding them and the regime’s refusal to give any information about where they are and their state of health. The best known is Dawit Isaac, founder of the now-closed weekly Setit and holding dual Eritrean and Swedish nationality, who since his arrest on 23 September 2001 has alternated between prison and hospital spells in the capital, Asmara. He was transferred in 2009 from a provincial prison in Embatkala to the air force hospital in Asmara, where he was treated for several months. Then he vanished and nobody has been allowed to visit him. He may be in Asmara’s Karchelle prison or in the Eiraeiro prison, northeast of the capital.

Other vanished journalists include the editor and co-founder of the fortnightly Meqaleh, Mattewos Habteab, arrested in Asmara on 19 September 2001, and sports writer Temesgen Gebreyesus, of the fortnightly Keste Debena, who was arrested the next day.

MEXICO

Journalist María Esther Aguilar Cansimbe, of the daily papers Diario de Zamora and Cambio de Michoacán (in the southwestern state of Michoacán), disappeared in 2009. Marco Antonio López Ortiz, news editor of the Acapulco paper El Sur (in the southwestern state of Guerrero), vanished in June 2011. No official investigation has produced any results.

MIDDLE EAST

Many foreign and Libyan journalists were detained for several days by supporters of the Gaddafi regime with no news of where they were being held or their conditions of detention. Disappearances are also frequent in Syria of journalists, activists and witnesses to the repression by the regime of President Bashar al-Assad.

http://en.rsf.org/no-one-shall-be-subjected-to-30-08-2011,40875.html

AQTOBE, Kazakhstan — A rights activist and RFE/RL reporter in northwestern Kazakhstan has been acquitted of libel, RFE/RL’s Kazakh Service reports.

Alima Abdirova was sued by the former director of a special-needs boarding school in Aqtobe after she alleged children there were being abused. The allegations were published in a local newspaper in May.

Abdirova told RFE/RL that Judge Maqsat Duisen dropped the libel charges against her on August 31, saying they «have not been proven in court.»

Abdirova was sued in her capacity as a member of the independent Kazakh Bureau for Human Rights, not as a journalist.

Irina Dombrovskaya, the school’s former director, maintained that Abdirova’s portrayal of conditions at the school was distorted and inaccurate.

Dombrovskaya also demanded 5 million tenges (about $34,000) in moral damages and 60,000 tenges (about $400) for court costs.

http://www.rferl.org/content/kazakh_reporter_activist_acquitted_of_libel/24314086.html

From October 2011 the international media NGO, International Media Support, will run a two and a half year programme in Tajikistan with various media projects focussing on support and professionalization of media, youth and media, capacity building of local media organizations and coordination of media activities with other international media NGOs.

International Media Support (IMS) seeks a Programme Manager to manage these media projects and to react to sudden future needs in the media environment of Tajikistan.

The Programme Manager must live in Tajikistan and work from there in close collaboration with local partners and IMS head quarters in Denmark, Department for Eastern Europe, Caucasus and Central Asia.

The Programme Manager is expected to work closely together with IMS’ local umbrella partner, NANSMIT and work from the office of NANSMIT.

The IMS Programme Manager in Tajikistan will be responsible for the IMS projects in Tajikistan, including the following tasks:

1. To become completely familiarized with the IMS projects in Tajikistan, budget, objectives, results and the time-frame in which the projects will take place (grant-administration and project cycle management).

2. To locally manage and coordinate all IMS projects in Tajikistan in close cooperation with IMS’ local partners and to assess sudden needs of IMS involvement in non-planned activities.

3. To make sure, that all IMS projects are carried out professionally, efficient and at reasonable economic costs in accordance with the budget-lines allocated.

4. To monitor the results of the IMS projects in Tajikistan in accordance with the planned outputs.

5. To support the project management of NANSMIT (the umbrella partner of IMS in Tajikistan) and to monitor the results of the projects led by NANSMIT on behalf of IMS.

6. To function as a communication link and coordinator between IMS and relevant local and international media/development organisations located in Tajikistan.

7. To manage the project budgets and to pay local staff who are working for IMS (e.g. short term experts).

8. To closely follow and monitor the media development in Tajikistan and to follow and monitor the overall political situation in the country (to the extent needed for media-development purposes).

9. To deliver qualified written input on the political development, the media development and the IMS projects in Tajikistan every half year for bi-annual reports to IMS’ back-donor and/or to report to IMS on the above listed tasks when required and needed.

10.To participate in a Skype meeting every 2nd week with IMS HQ.

Qualifications of the programme officer:

1. Relevant educational background (in journalism, international relations, communications, politics, business, business administration, cultural studies, or similar academic studies).

2. Preferably at least 3 years of professional experience in development assistance.

3. Preferably documented experience with project management.

4. Interest in and knowledge about media.

5. Knowledge about Tajik and Central Asian politics – and a sensitive flair of the present political development and potential conflicts.

6. Neutral, fair and balanced regarding possible political, religious and social conflicts in Tajikistan.

7. Extensive communicative and cooperative skills.

8. Extensive network in the Tajik society.

9. Efficient, constructive and solution oriented.

10. Preferably experience with or from CIS countries.

11. Fluent in Tajik and English and knowledge of Russian.

The salary will be negotiated according to qualifications.

The start of the job is preferably October 2011.

The work place will be at the office of NANSMIT: 34, Huseinzoda str, Dushanbe city, Tajikistan

Deadline for applications: September 20 2011.

More information about the job at:

NANSMIT: Nurridin Karshiboev, phone: (+992 37) 221-37-11, (992 93) 504 30 13(mobile), e-mail: knuriddin@yandex.ru , or at Henrik Hansen, International Media Support (hkh@i-m-s.dk or skype: henrikkeith)

www.nansmit.tj

International Media Support Is Seeking a Program Manager to manage media projects in Tajikistan.

From October 2011 the international media NGO, International Media Support, will run a two and a half year program in Tajikistan with various media projects focusing on support and professionalization of media, youth and media, capacity building of local media organizations and coordination of media activities with other international media NGOs.

International Media Support (IMS) seeks a Programme Manager to manage these media projects and to react to sudden future needs in the media environment of Tajikistan.

The Program Manager must live in Tajikistan and work from there in close collaboration with local partners and IMS head quarters in Denmark, Department for Eastern Europe, Caucasus and Central Asia.

The Program Manager is expected to work closely together with IMS’ local umbrella partner, NANSMIT and work from the office of NANSMIT.

For more information click here: [url=http://www.eng.nansmit.tj/?page=events&id=4]http://www.eng.nansmit.tj/?page=events&id=4[/url]

Dushanbe, Tajikistan, August 26, 2011

The Embassy of the United States of America is concerned with alleged threats made by an officer of the Ministry of Internal Affairs’ (MVD) Department for Combating Organized Crime against lawyers representing Asia-Plus.

If true, this type of action has no place in a court of law, and the incident must be investigated to preserve the integrity of the legal system.

We view the announcement by the MVD that it has launched an internal investigation as a positive step.

We urge the Office of the Prosecutor to view the allegations seriously, investigate them thoroughly, and take appropriate action based upon the results of the investigation.

http://dushanbe.usembassy.gov/

KHUJAND, Tajikistan — Lawyers for a BBC journalist on trial in Tajikistan on charges of associating with a banned Islamic group say officials have acknowledged there were procedural violations during his arrest and detention, RFE/RL’s Tajik Service reports.

Urunboy Usmonov, 59, was arrested in June and went on trial last week over his alleged links to Hizb ut-Tahrir.

Usmonov and his employer have denied any wrongdoing, saying any meetings he had with the group members were for purely journalistic purposes.

Usmonov’s lawyers quoted Khurshed Ghiyosov, head of the State Committee for National Security investigations department in Sughd Province, as saying on August 26 that Usmonov should have been provided with a lawyer immediately after his arrest, and a search of his home was not legal.

Usmonov’s wife, Malohat Abduazimova, who was invited to attend the court hearing, said that when security officers brought Usmonov with them on June 14 to search the family home there were visible signs of a beating on his head and face.

But representatives of the investigation team categorically deny beating Usmonov. They said that when Usmonov was freed from detention on July 14, he gave them a written statement that he was not beaten at the time of his arrest.

Usmonov’s lawyer Fayzinso Vohidova said he wrote that statement word by word under pressure from the prosecutors’ office simply to secure his release from detention. Vohidova claimed that investigators did not allow Usmonov to meet with his lawyers for nine days after his arrest, until the marks from the beating had disappeared.

Vohidova said the group of security agents who arrested Usmonov and searched his home acted illegally, because under Tajik law this is the task of investigators. For that reason, Vohidova said, the materials the security agents took from Usmonov’s home could not be used as evidence during his trial.

Usmonov and four other defendants face substantial fines or jail terms of up to five years, or both, if convicted.

http://www.rferl.org/content/tajik_officials_admit_irregularities_during_bbc_arrest/24309444.html

AQTOBE, Kazakhstan — A rights activist and RFE/RL correspondent in Kazakhstan is being sued for libel after she alleged children at a special needs school were being abused, RFE/RL’s Kazakh Service reports.

Alima Abdirova is due to appear in court in the western city of Aqtobe on August 27 after the former director of the school took legal action.

Abdirova is being sued as a member of the independent Kazakh Bureau for Human Rights group, and not as a journalist.

The case centers on comments Abdirova made in an article published in a local newspaper in May, where she said children at the Aqtobe boarding school were subject to beatings and neglect.

Irina Dombrovskaya, the school’s former director, says Abdirova’s comments unfairly portrayed the situation. She is demanding 5 million tenge (some $34,000) for moral damages and 60,000 tenge (some $400) for court costs. Abdirova could also face up to three years in prison if convicted.

Abdirova said the court has ignored the testimony of some witnesses, including that of a former student who alleged violence and other abuses at the school

Abdirova recently has been reporting on security problems in western Kazakhstan where there was a suicide bombing and a clash between security forces and alleged Islamic militants earlier this year.

A regional television station reported on the alleged Islamic militants and showed a photograph of Abdirova with the caption «accomplice» on the screen.

Abdirova said she believes the libel case against her is retaliation by the state security committee (KNB) for her coverage.

http://www.rferl.org/content/rferl_kazakh_reporter_sued_for_libel/24308854.html

AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL
PUBLIC STATEMENT

24 August 2011
Index: EUR 60/008/2011

Tajikistan: BBC journalist Urunboy Usmonov on trial for his professional activities

Amnesty International is concerned that BBC journalist Urunboy Usmonov faces up to five years’ imprisonment on charges believed to relate to his professional activities. To the organization’s knowledge, no investigation has yet been carried out into allegations that he was tortured and ill-treated in pre-trial detention. The judge has reportedly yet to inquire into how he and his four co-defendants have been treated in pre-trial detention.

On 16 August 2011 the trial by Soghd Regional Court opened against Urunboy Usmonov and four suspected Hizb-ut-Tahrir members — Abdunabi Abdulkodirov, Ibrogimbek Makhmudov, Talat Mavlonov and Yakhekhon Rakhmonkhujaev — at the investigation isolation prison No. 2 (SIZO) in the city of Khujand. The next hearing is set for 25 August in the building of Soghd Regional Court. It is expected that those officers who detained Urunboy Usmonov on 13 June will be questioned.

Urunboy Usmonov is accused of meeting these four men and receiving extremist literature; failing to report the activities of the banned Hizb-ut-Tahrir movement to law enforcement agencies; and using the BBC as a platform for Hizb-ut-Tahrir propaganda, thereby facilitating the commitment of crimes. His lawyer Fayziniso Vahidova told Amnesty International on 24 August that he once met Yakhekhon Rakhmonkhujaev and received Hizb-ut-Tahrir literature from him, but that he destroyed it immediately. According to Fayziniso Vahidova, he had never seen any of the other men and they also told the judge they had never seen him. Yakhekhon Rakhmonkhujaev reportedly told the judge that during his meeting with Urunboy Usmonov the journalist had expressed a negative opinion about Hizb-ut-Tahrir.

The lawyer also informed Amnesty International that the accusation that he had used the BBC as a platform for Hizb-ut-Tahrir propaganda referred to an incident when “Usmonov recorded an interview with a Hizb-ut-Tahrir member. But he never actually submitted this interview for broadcasting. Based on this only the prosecution states that he facilitated the commitment of crimes.” The prosecution additionally accused him of downloading articles from the internet about the activities of Hizb-ut-Tahrir. The charges brought against him — complicity in the activities of a banned organization of extremist character under Article 36, part 5, and Article 307.3, part 2 of the Criminal Code of Tajikistan – carry a maximum penalty of five years’ imprisonment.

Urunboy Usmonov has pleaded not guilty and told the judge that all his meetings and interviews with Hizb-ut-Tahrir members were of purely professional character as a journalist.

Amnesty International believes that Urunboy Usmonov, who worked for the BBC Central Asian service for 10 years, was targeted to punish him for his journalistic work and for peacefully exercising his right to freedom of expression. It was part of his assignment by the BBC to report about judicial trials and activities of the Hizb-ut-Tahrir movement in Tajikistan. In this context it was normal journalistic practice to interview people of all persuasions and beliefs, to study their ideology, and to keep his sources confidential.

Urunboy Usmonov was detained by officers of the State Committee of National Security (SCNS) in Khujand on 13 June 2011. According to the BBC and Urunboy Usmonov’s lawyer, officers tortured and ill-treated him, including by burning his arms with cigarettes and beating him, before his case was passed to the SCNS investigator and his detention was officially registered on 14 June. Fayziniso Vahidova told Amnesty International on 24 August: “They wanted him to ’confess’ to Hizb-ut-Tahrir membership but he was able to resist. However, they got him to state in writing that he should have reported to the authorities about his meetings with his sources of information.” According to the lawyer, before his case was passed to the investigator, SCNS officers also forced him under torture to write a statement renouncing the services of a lawyer: “They said that a lawyer can’t help anyway in political cases and that there had never been a case where anyone accused of Hizb-ut-Tahrir membership had been acquitted by a court.”

To Amnesty International’s knowledge, no forensic medical examination was conducted to investigate the torture allegations although injuries were reportedly visible when he was presented to the judge on 15 June and on 16 June international and local media started to report about alleged torture. Following an international outcry Urunboy Usmonov was released on bail on 14 July.

Urunboy Usmonov’s co-defendants are accused of crimes including setting up a criminal organization and incitement to national, racial or religious hatred. Three of them have not been represented by a lawyer at the trial. A person present at the trial told Amnesty International: “It is unknown whether they were held incommunicado and whether they were tortured. They are too scared to talk about anything like that”. Reportedly, the judge asked no questions about the treatment of all defendants in pre-trial detention.

Under international human rights law, information and confessions obtained from the defandants under torture or threats of torture and without the presence of his lawyer must not be used as evidence in court except as evidence against the alleged perpetrators. Allegations of torture, other ill-treatment and threats of torture must be investigated thoroughly, impartially and independently.

Backgrond information
Urunboy Usmonov was initially accused of membership in the banned movement Hizb-ut-Tahrir, and of conducting extremist propaganda using the internet, distributing the group’s literature and recruiting new members, an Interior Ministry spokesperson reported on 15 June. However, the investigation found no evidence of membership and, as reported by SCNS officials on 6 July, subsequently focused on his alleged involvement in the banned organization and on failing to inform the authorities of his contacts with it.

Urunboy Usmonov did not come home from work on 13 June. The next day he briefly returned to his family’s home in Khujand. He was in the presence of SCNS officers, who had come to search the house. His relatives saw injuries on his neck that they believe he sustained from torture or other forms of ill-treatment in detention.

Amnesty International has criticized human rights violations in the country including torture and ill-treatment by law enforcement officers; impunity for torturers; restrictions of freedom of speech; and violence against women.

In recent years independent media outlets and journalists have faced criminal and civil law suits for criticizing the government.

Law enforcement officers have in many cases been accused of torturing or beating detainees. Safeguards against torture enshrined in domestic law are not always adhered to. For example, while the new Criminal Procedure Code stipulates that detainees are entitled to a lawyer from the moment of their arrest, in practice lawyers are at the mercy of investigators who can deny them access for many days. During this period of incommunicado detention, the risk of torture or other ill-treatment is particularly high.

http://www.amnesty.org/

REPORTERS WITHOUT BORDERS/ REPORTERS SANS FRONTIÈRES

Press release/ Communiqué de presse

23.08.2011

English : http://en.rsf.org/tadjikistan-bbc-correspondent-tells-court-he-23-08-2011,40553.html

Français : http://fr.rsf.org/tadjikistan-poursuite-du-proces-du-23-08-2011,40548.html

TAJIKISTAN : BBC correspondent tells court he was tortured while detained
Reporters Without Borders reiterates it call to the judicial authorities to drop all charges against BBC correspondent Urinboy Usmonov, whose trial began on 16 August in the northern city of Khujand.

“Usmonov’s claims of being tortured while in detention are shocking,” Reporters Without Borders said. “They must be the subject of a serious investigation and those responsible should be punished. Unfortunately this is just the latest in a long list of irregularities since his arrest on 13 June, including denial of defence rights for a long period, statements obtained under duress and lack of evidence. His acquittal is the only way the authorities can emerge from this without completely discrediting themselves.”

The BBC reported on 19 August that during last week’s hearings, Usmonov said he had been burned with lit cigarettes and beaten while detained.

After his arrest on 13 June, he was initially accused of being a member of the outlawed Islamist party Hizb-ut-Tahrir. Now he is charged with being in contact with Hizb-ut-Tahrir without telling the authorities.

http://en.rsf.org/tadjikistan-bbc-correspondent-tells-court-he-23-08-2011,40553.html