Interesting discussion here. Sadly I had to leave before Natalya started disagreeing with me! In fact I don’t think we disagree very much. Certainly Karimov’s repression will encourage Islamic radicalism – we disagree in that I think Islamic radicalism is starting from a very low base indeed in Uzbekistan. But about the dynamics and the solutions there is nothing between us.
http://uzbekistan.neweurasia.net/2008/01/17/is-uzbekistan-repressive/
In a tremendous victory for a campaign in which this blog and other political bloggers played a leading part, Tesco have banned Uzbek cotton from all products sold in their stores and instituted supply chain audits to ensure this is enforced. Tesco must be congratulated on their response to the irrefutable proof of the massive use of child labour forced by a totalitarian state. But this is also startling evidence of the potency of activists, bloggers and consumers in the information age.
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2005/08/sanctions_again.html
http://disillusionedkid.blogspot.com/2005/09/look-whos-blogging.html
A Tesco executive, Terry Green, stated:
“the use of organised and forced child labour is completely unacceptable and leads us to conclude that whilst these practices persist in Uzbekistan we cannot support the use of cotton from Uzbekistan in our textiles”.
Many congratulations are due to the Environmental Justice Foundation and to People and Planet for their part in the campaign.
Reuters Alertnet provides a round-up of Uzbekistan’s December Presidential election.
Amnesty International have put out the following urgent appeal in the case of Ikhtiyor Hamroev. This means a lot to me because Ikhtiyor came out with his father Bakhtiyor to save me from a potentially extremely dangerous situtation when our Land Rover crashed on the ice in minus 30 degrees centigrade (Murder in Samarkand pages 140 to 143). The Hamroev family have suffered five years of continual assaults since.
Torture/health concern/possible prisoner of conscience
UZBEKISTAN
Ikhtior Khamroev (m), aged 22, student
Ikhtior Khamroev, who has been in jail since September 2006, was
reportedly severely beaten on 29 November. Sources inside the
prison have told his father that Ikhtior had also received stab
wounds to the abdomen, but was locked in a punishment cell rather
than taken to hospital. He is believed to have been detained
because of the activities of his father, a prominent human rights
defender, and may have been beaten to punish his father for his
recent anti-government statements.
He is the son of Bakhtior Khamroev, the head of the Dzhizzakh
section of the independent non-registered Human Rights Society of
Uzbekistan. He was detained in August 2006 on a reportedly
fabricated charge of “hooliganism” following a street fight with
other youths. His father has said he was provoked and acted in
self-defence. He was sentenced to three years in prison the
following month, and is now held in a prison camp in the Dzhizzakh
Region village of Chikurgan. He was severely beaten by prison
staff in December 2006 and refused appropriate medical treatment
for his injuries and other health problems. However, following
sustained international pressure his conditions of detention
improved noticeably: he was no longer ill-treated, received
medical treatment when necessary and was allowed regular visits by
his family.
His family were hoping that Ikhtior might be released early under
a December 2007 presidential amnesty, but when his mother visited
him on 29 November he told her that his sentence had been extended
by seven months for alleged “disciplinary offences”. He feared the
authorities would use this as a pretext to disqualify him from the
amnesty.
Sources inside the prison camp told Bakhtior Khamroev when he
visited on 1 December that during the night of 29 November Ikhtior
had been taken by prison guards to a punishment cell where he was
badly beaten, to force him to admit to further disciplinary
offences, which would almost certainly bar him from early release.
According to the same sources Ikhtior stabbed himself in the
abdomen in protest. It is not clear how he would have had a knife.
He was apparently refused appropriate medical treatment, and
locked in a punishment cell. The prison director has refused to
allow his parents to visit him, and has given them no details of
where he is held or his medical condition.
Since Ikhtior has been in prison, Bakhtior Khamroev had been less
outspoken in his criticism of the authorities’ human rights
record, so as not to worsen his son’s treatment. However he did
criticise them publicly at an international conference on human
rights defenders in the Irish capital, Dublin, at the end of
November, and so it is possible that Ikhtior was beaten to punish
his father. Bakhtior Khamroev made his speech just days after the
UN Committee against Torture concluded that torture and impunity
remained routine in Uzbekistan and criticized the authorities for
their harsh treatment of human rights defenders.
Bakhrom Khamroev has told human rights activists that the
authorities have stepped up their surveillance of him and his
family and that all his movements are closely monitored. .
BACKGROUND INFORMATION
The situation for human rights defenders in Uzbekistan has
deteriorated during 2007, and the authorities have further
restricted their freedom of speech, assembly and movement in the
run-up to the December presidential elections. In the first four
months of 2007 two human rights defenders and an opposition
political activist were sentenced to long prison terms on what
appeared to be politically-motivated charges. Those human rights
activists not forced into exile and not in detention were
routinely monitored by uniformed or plainclothes police, called in
to their local police stations for questioning, placed under house
arrest or otherwise prevented from attending meetings with foreign
diplomats, or from taking part in peaceful demonstrations. Human
rights defenders reported being threatened by members of the
security forces for carrying out legitimate activities; several
reported being beaten and detained by police or people they
thought were working for the security services.
RECOMMENDED ACTION: Please send appeals to arrive as quickly as
possible, in Russian, Uzbek, English or your own language:
– expressing concern at reports that Ikhtior Khamroev was severely
beaten on 29 November and that the prison authorities have refused
him the medical treatment he needs;
– urging the authorities to disclose Ikhtior Khamroev’s
whereabouts immediately;
– urging them to ensure that he receives all the medical treatment
he requires and is allowed visits from his family;
– calling on the authorities to promptly investigate the
allegations of ill-treatment and bring those responsible to
justice.
APPEALS TO: (Time difference = GMT + 5 hrs / BST + 4 hrs)
President, Islam KARIMOV
Presidential Residence, ul. Uzbekistanskaya, 43, g. Tashkent, UZBEKISTAN
Fax: 00998 71 139 53 25,
Email: [email protected]
[Salutation: Dear President Karimov]
Head of the Prison Service, Abdukarim SHODIEV
Ministry of Internal Affairs
UZBYM MVD Respubliki Uzbekistan,25, Ferganskoye shosse, 700005 g. Tashkent,UZBEKISTAN
Fax: 00998 71 133 89 34
Email: [email protected] or [email protected]
[Salutation: Dear Minister]
PLEASE SEND COPIES OF YOUR APPEALS TO: His Excellency Mr Tukhtapulat Riskiev, Embassy of the
Republic of Uzbekistan, 41 Holland Park, London W11 3RP.
Fax: 020 7229 7029
Email: [email protected]
Website: www.uzbekembassy.org
AND, IF POSSIBLE, TO THE FOLLOWING:
Director of prison camp where Ikhtior Khamroev is held
Sobir MINGBAEV
KIN UYa 64/78, p Chimkurgan, Zafarzhan district, Dzhizzakh region,
UZBEKISTAN
[Salutation: Dear Director]
Head of the Dzhizzakh Regional Department of Internal Affairs
Zhaloliddin AKBAEV
ul. Narimanova 30, 708000 g. Dzhizzakh. Dzhizzakh region,
UZBEKISTAN
Fax: 00998 72 226 03 02;
[Salutation: Dear Zhaloliddin Akbaev]
PLEASE SEND APPEALS IMMEDIATELY. Please do not send appeals after
16 January 2008.
—————————————————-
Am here in Accra and have picked up the vital news from Bob Marshall-Andrew’s office, that Jahongir Sidikov’s deportation has been postponed so his case can be reviewed. This is great news, but it gives us no more than a chance to fight. It makes further representations now still more urgent and important. This is particularly so in view of the Home Office’s initial reply to Bob Marshall-Andrews:
“The problem I have is that the correspondence you enclose from a Ms Catherine Brown appears to have no connection with Mr Sidikov. I know you will understand that Home Office records on individuals have to be treated as confidential and cannot be disclosed to third parties. As you are not Mr Sidikov’s MP and as Ms Brown has no connection with his case, you will appreciate that I am therefore prevented from discussing the details of this case with you. Please be assured, however, that the information you have submitted will be placed on file and will be fully considered by the Border and Immigration Agency before a final decision is made on Mr Sidikov’s case. In more general terms, I confirm that it is Home Office policy to remove political dissidents to Uzbekistan, if the independent judiciary has deemed an asylum claim to have no basis.”
I think this must rank with the most astonishing phrases ever uttered by a British government:
I confirm that it is Home Office policy to remove political dissidents to Uzbekistan
The temporary suspension of Sidikov’s deportation does not affect that policy. It is a policy which is vicious in the extreme as we know perfectly well what happens to political dissidents in Uzbekistan. I think the sentence above is in itself indicative of the hole in the soul of New Labour, and sufficient reason never to even consider voting for them again.
That policy needs to be challenged. So does the “fast track” system by which Sidikov went from hearing to appeal to deportation in just a fortnight. We were told the “fast track” was for prima facie spurious cases from “safe” countries like Belgium. How on earth could a dissident from the worst country in the world to send a dissident get fast-tracked?
It was the fast track procedure that directly caused the failure of Sidikov’s appeal. His solicitor had under a week’s notice of the date, and witnesses – including myself, who was in Africa – could not make it for the hearing at that notice. The judge then refused to accept written evidence from several witnesses living abroad, on the grounds she could not be certain of the authenticity of the statements. She did not give time to establish their authenticity, just refused to accept them. She suggested they were forged because they had similar grammatical errors such as incorrect use of the definite and indefinite article. That was because they were all written by Uzbeks who do not have the article – my Uzbek partner always makes the same mistake in English. I know for certain that the statements were authentic. The judge’s behaviour was a disgrace, and let me be plain I do have contempt of her court, deep contempt. But she was merely indicative of the general mindset of the “Fast-track”, a disgraceful device by which the government seeks to curry favour with the tabloids by increasing deportation numbers.
Boosting New Labour with focus groups infinitely outweighs the torture to death of the odd dissident.
A number of MPs have now made representations about Jahongir Sidikov. I have in particular been copied this excellent letter by Bob Marshall-Andrews, queryiing our apparent new policy of deporting to Uzbekistan:
27 November 2007
Mr Liam Byrne MP
Minister of State (Borders and Immigration)
Home Office
2 Marsham Street
LONDON SW1P 4DF
Dear Liam
Re.: Johongir Sidikov Home Office ref. no.: S2185191
I am writing to you about this young man, an Uzbekistan dissident, who is due to be deported tomorrow. He is presently at Harmondsworth Detention Centre. He is no connection with my constituency and, indeed, I have seen no papers relating to the withdrawal of his asylum status. I have been contacted by a friend of mine at Cambridge University who has also provided me with an article written by Craig Murray and I attach a copy for your immediate convenience.
As I have said, I am not aware of the full facts but I am very concerned that we should be deporting dissidents to Uzbekistan, a country which is a notorious reputation for human rights abuse and torture. I had always believed that it was policy not to deport to that country.
In these circumstances I would be very grateful if you would grant a short stay of execution in order that I may acquaint myself with the background with a view to possibly making further representations if that appear to be merited. On a wider level, I would be grateful if you could let me know if it is now government policy to deport political dissidents to Uzbekistan and whether any bi-lateral agreements have been made concerning their treatment.
The urgency is self-apparent and I would be very grateful for an early response.
Yours sincerely
Bob Marshall-Andrews QC MP
(Dictated by RMA and signed in his absence
As far as I can tell, the Home Office have yet to reply to any of the many representations they have received. They seem determined to go ahead with this deportation. This is bringing increasing international condemnation, inluding this report from Radio Free Europe:
Political Activist Fears Extradition To Uzbekistan
November 27, 2007 (RFE/RL) — Human rights activists are concerned that Britain may deport opposition activist Jahongir Sidikov to Uzbekistan on November 28.
Sidikov and Uzbek rights activists told RFE/RL’s Uzbek Service that he would face immediate arrest, torture, and possible death if deported.
The concern is not unfounded — the UN Committee Against Torture said last week that torture and ill-treatment are “widespread” in Uzbekistan.
Speaking by phone today from a detention center in London, Sidikov expressed fear for his life. “According to the latest news that I have got, they are going to send me back to Uzbekistan on Wednesday. I know that right after my arrival in Uzbekistan I’ll be arrested. I’m afraid that I’ll be persecuted and tortured. I’m really worried for my life.”
Sidikov is a member of Erk, a banned Uzbek opposition party. He came to London to study at the City University in 1999 and then sought unsuccessfully to gain political asylum in Britain.
Full report here:
http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2007/11/CD96D98E-B944-4542-89C4-3508A18BCB8F.html
The deportation is scheduled for tomorrow evening, so there is still time for further representations – though no sign that the Home Office is paying any attention to them. I keep saying this, but I just find it absolutely unbelievable that the UK is starting to deport dissidents back to Uzbekistan.
As I get set to dash off to Ghana again, a round-up of several issues.
Firstly, and most importantly, Wednesday 28 November has now been set as the date for Jahongir Sidikov’s deportation. The Home Office have received an impressive number of representations, including a united one from effectively all of Uzbekistan’s opposition and human rights groups. We now need a further push to try to save this man’s life.
While numerous individual bloggers have been involved in whipping up support they include, with the odd honourable exception, very few high profile ones. So far as I can see, neither Liberal Conspiracy nor any of its contributors – even though I emailed the site an urgent appeal for help. So maybe Liberal Conspiracy is just a New Labour sock puppet exercise after all.
When I read blogs abut Uzbekistan written by travellers I am sometimes moved to fury. Few people are more interested in architecture and history than I, but I don’t understand how it can blind people to everything else.
So congratulations are due to Apropos, for his excellently perceptive observations on his travel blog. Very well written too:
However, for an ordinary Uzbekistani, it would seem that life’s aspirations are much more modest with very few avenues of opportunity. Naturally, any discussion relating to politics is extremely dangerous for the average Uzbekistani, and although it is not impossible to find people who “will talk,” the average person seems frightened and oppressed. While ethnic Uzbeks (comprising about 80% of the population) are markedly warm, kind, family-oriented people, ordinary life in Uzbekistan seems a dull shade of gray, with little evidence of any living culture, intellectualism, arts, or creativity. Rather, the Uzbekistani people seem frightened and in some sense, dumbed-down, as if they are the end product of a society which has long hammered-down “the nail that sticks out.” And it is not uncommon to find Uzbeks — particularly young men — staring off into infinity with a stupefied, wall-eyed, bovine stare that seems to signify something like spiritual defeat.
One assumes that this descends from the governing system, which instead of facilitating growth and progress, appears designed to make life impossible. Everything — from the poor banking system, the absurdly denominated currency (time spent “counting money” is a significant activity in virtually every transaction), poorly maintained highways, the routine police checks everywhere, the internet is crawls where it exists, censorship is pervasive, the food shops are pitifully understocked in some places, economic opportunity is extremely limited, and the dense, inevitable bureaucracy overhangs virtually every part of public life — whether by necessity or design, all of this serves to make daily life more difficult and the disempowers the people.
http://www.x3n.org/2007/11/uzbekistan-shades-of-oppression.html
The post includes links at the bottom to three Youtube excerpts from an Australian Broadcasting Corporation documentary on Uzbekistan (and a bit about me). If anybody has the slightest doubt about the urgency of saving Jahongir I strongly recommend you to watch these, with the warning that some of the images are truly horrific.
Brian Barder’s blog is always worth a look and I highly commend his very sober analysis of the government’s current unpopularity:
There remain puzzling questions about why Gordon Brown and his colleagues persist in their attachment to policies which become more obviously indefensible by the day: the most obvious examples being the renewal of Trident, ID cards (especially including their accompanying national identity register) and the further extension of the already grossly excessive 28-day maximum time in which terrorist suspects may be imprisoned without even being charged, still less tried or convicted of any specified offence. The varying justifications advanced for these discredited policies have repeatedly been exposed as invalid. Refusal to drop them (if necessary by easy stages, to minimise humiliation) looks increasingly like personal obstinacy verging on the perverse.
http://www.barder.com/ephems/730
Full piece well worth reading. I only disagree with his last few sentences, which I think reflect a residual Labour loyalty and really don’t logically connect with the rest of the piece. I rather feel that we have just passed an “Emperor’s New Clothes” point after which people will no longer readily believe the government about anything, particularly the hype about the War on Terror.
Both Newsnight and Sunday Edition deny that the cancellation of my appearances was anything to do with blacklisting. Here is the email from Sunday Edition:
Dear Craig
Thank you for your email. I have been out of the office for several days and have only just received this, otherwise I would have replied sooner.
Firstly, thank you again for having agreed to come on the show, and apologies once more having cancelled at the last minute. This happens quite a lot on this type of programme ?” in fact we have even dropped guests as senior cabinet ministers in the past. In answer to your question, it was not a ‘blacklisting’, but a change in the emphasis of our debate. We decided to focus more on the domestic counter-terror proposals, rather than foreign aspects of the ‘war on terror’ and the other issues I had mentioned on the phone (Pakistan, Brown’s foreign policy speech). With your lengthy experience as a diplomat, we had envisaged asking you to comment mainly on these foreign policy issues ?” and then also comment on the domestic aspects. As our focus had changed, we instead had two guests to speak more on domestic side ?” Jan Berry of the Police Federation; and Patrick Mercer, former Shadow Homeland Security Secretary (who incidentally have differing views on the proposed counter terror legislation). We also included questions on prisons on which Jan was qualified to speak.
The ‘war on terror’ is a subject we should and will discuss in future on our current affairs programmes. We aim to represent a range of viewpoints when we cover any topic. The Sunday Edition has come to the end of its run, but we would be happy to have you on a future current affairs programme on a suitable discussion.
All the best
James
I may not have been formally blacklisted, but a media that believes that just the Conservative Party and the Police cover a reasonable spectrum of opinion for a discussion on “Homealnd security” is a media under the severest of intellectual constraint. I saw newspaper reports that “Sunday Edition” has been axed as too boring. It seems to me just the same pap as on the other channels.
Today the Oxford Union hosts a debate featuring David Irving and Nick Griffin. I really don’t have terrifically strong feelings. I don’t think the Oxford Union should have invited them, but I think the Oxford Union have the right to invite them if they so choose. I would never invite Nick Griffin to speak anywhere, but I think he has a right to speak where he has his meetings. I think it was very wrong to put Irving in jail for being a deluded nutter. Equally I think it was extremely wrong of us to jail a young Muslim girl, the “Lyrical terrorist” for thinking and writing obnoxious thoughts and bad poetry.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article2633764.ece
An idea, however wicked, should bever be illegal. If you persecute an idea you feed it. John Stuart Mill, as virtually always, was right. If we start jailing people for their thoughts, half the country should be put away for what flashes across their minds whenever Tony Blair appears on TV.
I spoke at the Oxford Union last week, in a debate on the War on Terror. I spoke against the motion “This house believes that in the war on terror the best defence is a good offense”. I spoke with Jeremy Greenstock and Ned Lamont, against Julian Lewis, Frank Gaffney and J D Hayworth. British readers might like to google the last two. We defeated the motion overwhelmingly – by about four to one. I believe that is indicative of the current intellectual trend. Annoyingly I haven’t seen any media reports of this major debate, and the Oxford Union appear not even to have put a report on their website – too busy taking sherry with fascists, apparently.
Finally, for this round-up, I had the honour to be the opening speaker at People and Planet’s Shared Planet conference in Sheffield. It gave me a big boost – over seven hundred highly commited student activists, in an organisation that really gets the connections between environmentalism, poverty, hydrocarbon dependency, corporate greed, human rights and war.
Here is a photograph of Jahongir, the young man the British government is so very eager to hand over to the Uzbek security services. I can state with absolute certainty that a young man with facial hair like Jahongir will immediately be detained and tortured as an Islamic “extremist”.
Jahongir Sidikov is still in detention at Heathrow, having offered passive resistance to the attempt to deport him today. Next time they will use staff authorised and equipped to use force.
I am deeply depressed. All yesterday I was working on trying to save him from being returned to the horrors of the Karimov regime’s treatment of dissidents, and it was like living inside a nightmare. Together with an Uzbek friend, we got in an emergency application to the European Court of Human Rights for an Article 39 stay on deportation as Jahongir’s life was in danger. This involved my friend filling and faxing numerous forms. I spoke with the legal officers filing the report to the Court, and with the National Council for Assisting Deportees who told me that a temporary stay was “always…automatically” granted so the case could be investigated. By the early evening Jahongir had already been taken to the airport to be deported, and still no result. Finally, the news came from Strasbourg – the appeal for a delay had been rejected by the assistant registrar of the Court. I have no idea why.
I am still in a genuine state of shock and disbelief that we should start shipping asylum seekers back to Uzbekistan, of all places. It is as though the government have gone into official denial of what kind of place Uzbekistan is. I am also astonished that I have been met with complete indifference from everybody – officials, MPs and journalists. I can’t get anybody to take an interest.
I telephoned the British Embassy in Tashkent and the Ambassador, Iain Kelly, refused to speak to me. So both a yes man and a coward, then. In 2003 Iain Kelly was deputy to Matthew Kydd, Head of “Whitehall Liasion Department”, the link between the FCO and MI6. Kelly’s boss Kydd told me that it had been decided between Richard Dearlove and Jack Straw as a matter of policy that we should use intelligence from torture in the context of the War on Terror, specifically from Uzbekistan, and that this intelligence was “operationally useful”. (Murder in Samarkand pp 160-2)
Iain Kelly is therefore not just passively but actively implicated in the policy of cooperation with the torture of Uzbek dissidents by the Uzbek intelligence services. He will also have been directly implicated in the use of intelligence obtained by torture through extraordinary rendition, in Uzbekistan and elsewhere.
It is therefore essential that the Uzbek human rights community are aware of this and do not trust the British Embassy with any information or cooperation in future.
The choice of Kelly as the new British Ambassador. together with the decision to end EU sanctions against the regime and to start handing over dissidents like Sidikov to the Uzbek regime, seems to indicate a return to a closer relationship with Karimov.
After Kelly refused to speak with me, I received an email from a junior official in the FCO asking me to route my enquiry through her. She confirmed that the FCO was aware of the deportation of Jahongir Sidikov and had liased with the Home Office on it. I asked if there were any arrangements in place to track what happened to him once he arrived back in Tashkent. Evidently there were not, but she promised to speak to the Embassy about it. I followed up with this email:
Sarah,
We spoke. I should be most grateful if you could ensure that, should Mr Sidikov be deported as planned today, the Embassy monitors what happens to him and maintains an interest in his welfare. As I am sure you are aware, there is a strong argument that any deportation of Mr Sidikov is in contravention of Artilce 3 of the UN Convention Against Torture, to which the UK is a state party. Have Legal Advisers been consulted?
I should also be grateful if you could inform me whether diplomatic assurances have been sought from the government of Uzbekistan over treatment of those refouled, and if so with what result, and what weight you place upon any assurances from the government of Uzbekistan?
This is the first time, to my knowledge, that we have deported an asylum seeker to Uzbekistan. Is that correct?
I shall remain regularly in touch for updates on Mr Sidikov’s situation. If this man is tortured or killed because the UK government sent him back to the custody of what is widely acknowledged to be one of the worst regimes on Earth, it will not be able to be kept secret.
Best Wishes,
Craig
Again, I restate my disbelief that we are doing this. How on Earth can we consider deporting dissidents back to Uzbekistan. Do Ministers not know what happens in that country, or do they just not care? And why can’t I get any politician, journalist or official even vaguely interested? Even on the internet, no prominent bloggers have shown any interest. I don’t know that I have ever felt so frustrated and alone – but my problems are nothing compared to how Jahongir must be feeling. To sit in a condemned cell awaiting a relatively quick death must be awful. But to await the kind of things the Uzbek security services will do to you – and to be awaiting them in England – is unthinkable.
For the first time, Britain will tomorrow deport a failed asylum seeker back to Uzbekistan. Jahongir Sidikov, a member of the banned main opposition party Erk, is currently held in Harmondswoth Detention Centre. His ticket has already been purchased for deportation tomorrow.
Previously, as a matter of policy, this country did not deport political activists to Uzbekistan because they will face severe torture and probable death. The totalitarian Uzbek government has since become even more repressive, with widespread imprisonment, torture and extra-judicial killing of dissidents. The immigration officers who escort Jahongir onto that plane are in effect implementing capital punishment. This is a deeply, deeply shameful action by New Labour.
Muhammadsolish Abutov’s brief memoir is harrowing but well worth reading through:
Every day after work Bechkanov and I dragged water, and watered the flowers around the unit and cleaned the toilet. We worked together on the crusher and there I witnessed yet another example of barbarism against Muslims in the history of mankind. In the work zone there was a toilet with a pit underneath that you could climb to the bottom of by steps. Usually prisoners bring the shit out of their in buckets when it rises up. I saw how from the work zone headquarters they brought four prisoners, leaders of Hizb-ut-Tahrir. And in broad daylight, right in the work zone, several activists headed by the brigade leader of the work zone Shakir lowered them into the pit, right on the shit. It was a terrible sight. The crusher was about 100 metres from the toilet ?” I saw how they lowered them into the pit, and how they lifted them up, all stinking and in shit, wet from head to toe. They were taken to the washing area, washed, dressed and put in the punishment cells.
Later, when I asked Khafizuli about this he said that the head of the work zone had demanded that he write Karimov a letter and he’d refused. For that those four got beatings and were then put into the toilet pit. But when you’d only just arrived at the colony, everybody wrote in quarantine after all, didn’t they? , I asked. He answered that yes, he’d written, but that now they wanted him to do it again, and this time he’d refused.
. Bekchanov and I dragged the crushed stone in barrows from the crusher to the concrete mixer, 200 metres. Bekchanov was around 50, a simple man. He spoke his Khoresm dialect of the Uzbek language, and not in the Tashkent form which is regarded as a sign of being cultured. He did not, as I noted, make his prayers and was not a religious man. And he was afraid of the brigade leaders. Just on seeing them, he would try to work faster. He was stronger than I was, but when those brigade leaders abused or beat him, he was silent. I on the contrary tried to also abuse them or yell.
Bekchanov is the brother of Uzbek opposition leader Muhammad Salih. It is worth noting the scale of Karimov’s labour camps – over 5,000 in one alone. Also the continued presence in the gulags of some of Karimov’s internal party opponents from Soviet days. Abutov’s final camp is the notorious Jaslik, where Avazov and Alimov were boiled to death.
Not sure how the formatting and footnotes will survive, but full text here.
Usmanov’s PR people claim it would have been impossible for Gazprom to pay a bribe to President Karimov’s daughter Gulnara because
No evidence has ever been forthcoming and the accounts of Gazprominvest [the Gazprom company of which Usmanov is president] are audited by PricewaterhouseCoopers
http://football.guardian.co.uk/News_Story/0,,2202113,00.html
That of course is deeply reassuring. Usmanov is audited by the people who brought you Robert Maxwell’s accounts
http://visar.csustan.edu/aaba/auditmaxwell.htm
and the BCCI accounts
http://visar.csustan.edu/aaba/bccipress.html
I hope that you are suitably reassured.
I was very pleased indeed with the report on Newsnight last night. I thought the discomfiting of the commercial companies pretending they didn’t know was exemplary television. Minister Gareth Thomas’ attempt to convey concern and pretend this was news to the government, when I reported it in detail to them in 2002 and was told to shut up, almost made me physically retch.
You can watch it here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/player/nol/newsid_4670000/newsid_4679900/4679986.stm?bw=bb&mp=wm&news=1
although I fear that link will only work for one day. If anyone knows how to Youtube it or otherwise save it, that would be good.
Meanwhile the Guardian has picked up on the government’s stonewalling of Jeremy Corbyn over Usmanov:
http://football.guardian.co.uk/News_Story/0,,2202113,00.html
Arsenal supporters need to press their own MPs on this. You can do this by entering your postcode on this website http://www.theyworkforyou.com/ then clicking on “send a message to your MP” in the first box about him.
has an expose on the Uzbek cotton industry. I advised on the making of this and on how to do secret filming in Uzbekistan. This is the stuff that we did a mass blog on over a year ago, and on which I have spoken and down the country in draughty halls at 117 meetings since. Finally we may get some real pressure on the clothes and fashion industries now for their complicity in propping up a fascist regime.
Please do watch.
This short film by the Environmental Justice Foundation is also important:
I cannot believe Alisher Saipov is dead. When last I saw him he can only have been 23 years old, and was so brimming with energy, life and optimism. Now at 26 he is dead, just the latest dissident to be murdered by the Karimov regime. There is a lovely tribute from Natalia Antaleva here.
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/world/story/0,,2200568,00.html
Coming so hard on the murder of my friend Mark Weil, I really am overwhelmed by the sheer horror of it all.
http://news.independent.co.uk/people/obituaries/article2970807.ece The dissident movement in Uzbekistan has been almost entirely exiled, incarcerated or murdered now, and the state becomes ever more of a nightmare. I find it crushing – and I am not even an Uzbek.
There is an absolutely vital item on Uzbekistan coming on BBC2 Newsnight on Tuesday 30 October. It looks at the slavery of the people while Karimov and his oligarchs become billionaires. Please do watch it.
Meantime, Jeremy Corbyn, MP for Islington North (and thus Arsenal FC), had tried through a parliamentary question to obtain from the British Government the reports I put in from the British Embassy in Tashkent regarding Alisher Usmanov’s corrupt dealings with the Karimovs and Putin.
Foreign and Commonwealth Office
Alisher Usmanov
Jeremy Corbyn: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will publish reports received from British embassies relating to Alisher Usmanov. [158765]
Mr. Jim Murphy: Such information would constitute personal data. A request for personal information brings into play the relevant legislative provisions on data release by the Government and would require the consent of the individual concerned.
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200607/cmhansrd/cm071017/text/71017w0003.htm
That stonewalling answer is, when you think about it, quite astonishing. The government can never tell you about Mugabe, or Slobodan Milosevic, or anyone else, without their consent? Of course it is a nonsense excuse – which leads to the question, why is New Labour supporting Usmanov in covering up his past?
They also will not tell us why (if my sources are correct) he received a British passport:
British Citizenship: Alisher Usmanov
Lord Oakeshott of Seagrove Bay asked Her Majesty’s Government:
Whether Mr Alisher Usmanov holds British citizenship, whether honorary or not; and, if so, when and why it was granted. [HL5411]
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Home Office (Lord West of Spithead): It is the policy of the Border and Immigration Agency not to comment publicly on individual cases.
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200607/ldhansrd/text/71016w0001.htm
Again that is nonsense – you may recall Peter Mandelson had to resign for the second time for improperly facilitating the passport application of another dodgy billionaire. Did the government simply take the line that it could not comment on an individual passport application? No, it did not.
http://www.city-journal.org/html/17_3_oh_to_be.html
For some reason New Labour is trying to clamp down debate on Mr Usmanov. I wonder if Gallagher Holdings, or any of Usmanov’s other companies, will turn out to have made donations or “loans” to New Labour?
If you read the awful Mark Franchetti article (see below) and strip it of spin, some facts do emerge which confirm the truth of my account.
– Usmanov’s “pardon” did indeed come from Uzbekistan and had nothing to do with Mikhail Gorbachev, contrary to the lies of Schillings
– Usmanov was never a political prisoner opposed to communism. He was indeed convicted for corrupt dealings. He claims he was the accidental victim of a friend being set up – even if that were true, it does not make him an anti-communist political prisoner, which is how Schillings attempted to portray him.
– I published that
Key to this triumph has been the Uzbek oligarch Alisher Usmanov, chairman of Gazprominvest Holdings. This subsidiary is the channel for massive slush funds. In November 2004, for example, a payment of $88 million to Gulnara, the daughter of President Karimov of Uzbekistan, secured Uzbekistan’s gas contracts for Gazprom from under the noses of the United States, which had originally secured them through a bribe from the subsequebtly defunct Enron. In a series of transactions typical of Gazprom, at the same time Usmanov transferred half of a Russian bank, Mapobank, to Putin’s private secretary, Piotr Jastrzebski. Jastrzebski was Usmanov’s former flatmate at Moscow Diplomatic Academy and bagman for Putin. Putin instructed Karimov in return for the cash to kick out the US military base which dominated Central Asia, and Gazprom had secured the strategic kingpin to dominate the Central Asian and Caucasus gas reserves.
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2007/06/russian_journal.html
Usmanov now tells Franchetti:
He also became close friends with fellow students Sergei Yastrzhembsky and Sergei Prikhodko, both now aides to Putin
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article2652774.ece
Now that is the first published admission I have seen of the key Usmanov/Jastrzebski relationship. Franchetti shows that I was right about this, and about the origin of that relationship as students. Might this not indicate to a less biased observer that my sources on Usmanov are sound?
That makes three absolutely key things I have published about Usmanov that are now shown to be true. Is there one thing I have published that has been disproved by the hordes of mainstream media looking to attack us?
Bloggerheads and others have already done great’work in exposing those journalists easily bought up by a billionaire’s favour and hospitality.
http://b-heads.blogspot.com/2007/10/hooray-for-mainstream-media.html
But crass Mark Franchetti wins the prize for rolling over in return for a chauffeured visit to a billionaire’s mansion and indulging in “a lunch of lamb stew and red wine served by the butler in one of his private dining rooms, a hall lined with gilded central Asian vases.” He then gives us a propaganda piece so cringeworthy as to be astonishing coming from a once great newspaper.http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article2652774.ece
He approvingly quotes Usmanov’s crude attack on me:
Usmanov rejected the charges and threatened to sue Murray “if he can first prove that he is completely sane”.
Of course I have neither mansion nor butler to entertain the Franchettis of this world, so evidently I must be mad.
Franchetti then goes on to retail without analysis Usmanov’s ludicrous account of the circumstances of his conviction for fraud, corruption and theft of state property.
Usmanov says it was all beacuse of an attempt in 1980 by the Moscow KGB to stop his friend’s father becoming head of the Tashkent KGB. To stop the father the KGB cooked up an elaborate plot to get the son to accept a bribe, tricking him into thinking this was part of an intelligence operation. However the person paying the bribe gave it to Usmanov, because he knew that Usmanov was a friend of the person he wanted to bribe. So Usmanov accidentally in good faith accepted the brown envelope for his friend, who was being set up by the KGB to get at his father.
How is your Bullshit-meter reading? Some thoughts that did not occur to Mr Franchetti:
– This is 1980. Brezhnev is the President of a confident centralist Soviet state. If the Moscow KGB wanted rid of someone under Brezhnev, they would not have to cook up cock-eyed plots involving framing their son.
– Paying a bribe is a risky occupation. How likely is it that a smuggler would pay a bribe by giving the cash to a friend of the person they wished to bribe, and asking them to pass it on?
– The Brezhnev KGB were quite efficient. If they had cooked up this cock-eyed plot, they would have got the bribe to the right person.
Those are only a few of the improbabilities about the Usmanov story. Now I can understand that under the influence of Usmanov’s red wine Franchetti was having problems of discernment. But Franchetti cannot be defended in his dealing with the issue of the diassappearance of Usmanov’s criminal record.
Franchetti notes,
The convictions were later overturned by Uzbekistan’s Supreme Court, which ordered his police record to be expunged.
and Franchetti goes on to use the line:
Although he was fully absolved in 2000 and no longer has a criminal record,
In fact, being absolved by Uzbekistan’s Supreme Court means nothing whatsoever. Uzbekistan is a totalitarian state and has absolutely nil judicial independence. The conviction rate in Uzbek criminal cases is over 99%, which gives you an idea of how fair the trial procedures are. The internet is full of information about the legal, judicial and human rights situation in Uzbekistan, but this Human Rights Watch report might be a good start on judicial independence.
http://hrw.org/backgrounder/eca/uzbek0305/uzbek0305.pdf
The Supreme Court of Uzbekistan receives its orders from President Karimov, arguably the most vicious dictator on earth and a friend of Alisher Usmanov. Karimov wiped out his criminal record for him. So how much you trust Usmanov comes down to how much you trust Karimov. Karimov’s state frequently tortures dissidents to death.
What makes Franchetti’s piece so disgusting is that he knows full well what the political situation in Uzbekistan is, and he knows full well that the Supreme Court of Uzbekistan has no independence and that a pardon from it for an oligarch has no meaning. It is simply that Franchetti chooses not to share this information with his readers, because the Times has decided to puff Usmanov. Mark Franchetti is no fool; he is rather a disgusting and unprincipled man and a disgrace to his profession. Amazing what some people will do if given the services of a chauffeur and a butler for an afternoon.
Meanwhile Usmanov is still too cowardly to sue me – and his excuses for avoiding the courts become feebler:
I won’t fall so low as to fight those who want to blacken my name.
Indeed – why have the truth tested before an honest jury, when you can just buy up cheap journalists instead?
I have posted previously on the so-called Islamic Jihad Union, which appears to be a creation of the Uzbek Security Services and the CIA, and the extraordinary claims that it was responsible for a plot to blow up a US airbase as well as bars and nightclubs in Germany.
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2007/09/islamic_jihad_u.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1595387,00.html
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2007/09/the_mysterious.html#comments
A recent ARD documentary further unpicked this story. For example German prosecutors have said that the group bought bomb-making equipment (tape, batteries and a watch) from a garage store. The documentary makers contacted the store, who checked their till receipts and found that they had sold none of those items on the given day.
We now have vital confirmation that the only link between the three alleged terrorists and the “Islamic Jihad Union” is an allegation from the CIA. Thanks to the excellent Moon of Alabama for picking up on this vital interview:
The leader of the Islamic terror research group of Germany’s internal intelligence service, Benno Koepfer, thinks the above is wrong. There is no IJU. Here is an interview published today in the German daily TAZ (my slightly shortened translation):
TAZ: Were the three bomb-builders backed by the Islamic Jihad Union?
BK: I doubt that these three were working on orders by some fixed organization named Islamic Jihad Union.
TAZ: The IJU claimed responsibility for the actions of those three.
BK: There are many indication that such claims on Internet sites were done by some free loaders. There was only public information in these claims.
TAZ: What about the supposed 2004 assaults by the group in Uzbekistan?
BK: Uzbekistan does not have a free press. It is hard to verify what really happened in Uzbekistan.
TAZ: Where is the origin of the earlier assumption that the bomb builders are related to the IJU?
BK: Those were informations from U.S. intelligence services.
TAZ: Could the IJU be an invention of western intelligence services?
BK: I will not speculate about that.
TAZ: Can you voice these doubts without problems?
BK: Yes. It is important to tell the public that there are such doubts. If it would surface three years from now that IJU never existed, it would be more troublesome for the intelligence services.
http://www.moonofalabama.org/2007/10/lets-bury-the-i.html#more
The delightful and charming Mr Usmanov takes to grave-robbing.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/2007/10/12/battle-to-the-death-89520-19939875/