 Professional Background
A prominent Uzbek journalist in the period immediately following the
collapse of the Soviet Union, Muhammad Bekjanov came to be recognized
as a leading voice in the struggle for democracy in Uzbekistan. When
the party of Islam Karimov came to power in 1991, Bekjanov worked
side-by-side with his brother Muhammad Salih on the publication of Erk
("Freedom"), the newspaper of Uzbekistan's major opposition party.
For
three years, Erk served as the primary forum of written dissent against
the government of President Karimov, who had been First Secretary of
the Communist Party in Uzbekistan in the 1980s. While Karimov's
policies aimed to limit democratic development and silence criticism by
hounding journalists and their families, Bekjanov continued to
contribute regularly to Erk and supported the Erk party, a political
movement founded by Salih during the 1991 presidential election.
President Karimov worked consistently to stifle the voice of the
opposition, and his government's efforts led to the banning of the
newspaper Erk in 1994.
Current Status
Since his conviction, Bekjanov has been held in the Bukhara region at
Kagan prison, one of the worst in Uzbekistan. Relatives who were
permitted to visit Bekjanov in 2001 expressed alarm at the state of his
health. He allegedly required crutches.
On June 18, 2003,
Bekjanov gave his first interview since his detention to
representatives from the Institute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR),
who were allowed to visit him in a prison hospital in Tashkent.
Bekjanov said that he had contracted tuberculosis, a disease that has
become endemic in Uzbek prisons. Due to torture, he is now deaf in his
right ear and one of his legs is confirmed broken. He is scheduled for
release in 2012.
PEN considers Muhammad Bekjanov to be
detained solely for exercising his right to free expression as
guaranteed by Articles 19 and 22 of the United Nations Universal
Declaration of Human Rights, and is calling for his immediate and
unconditional release.
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Case History
Bekjanov was forced to flee to the Ukraine and to sever ties with the
Erk party and its publications. Erk continued as an underground
opposition movement through the 1990s. In 1999, a series of explosions
in the Uzbek capital Tashkent was blamed on Erk, and President Karimov
ordered all members associated with the opposition to be arrested.
Bekjanov was arrested in Kiev on March 15, 1999, and extradited to
Uzbekistan. It is suspected that Bekjanov's arrest resulted from his
position as a former Erk journalist.
At his trial five months
later, Bekjanov's testimony included descriptions of torture police
used during interrogation to force him to incriminate himself. After a
speedy trial, he was convicted of conspiracy related to the Tashkent
bombings and was sentenced to 15 years in prison. It is believed that
the bombing was used as a pretext to arrest those associated with the
Erk party. Further evidence of Bekjanov's innocence came to light in
December 2003 when Zayniddin Asqarov, a political leader in the Islamic
Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) and the lead witness in the prosecution of
Bekjanov, told a press conference that he had given evidence after
torture. Uzbek authorities responded by reducing the 50-year-old
journalist's sentence to 13 years.
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