Uzbekistan: Journalist Assaulted After Reporting on Massacre

http://www.muslimuzbekistan.net/en/centralasia/hr/story.php?ID=1423&print=Y
The circumstances of the attack strongly suggest that Aleksei Volosevich, a
correspondent for the independent website fergana.ru, was attacked in
Tashkent on Monday because of his extensive reporting critical of the
government since the May 13 massacre.

"Aleksei Volosevich is the latest independent journalist to be attacked in
the wake of Andijan," said Holly Cartner, Europe and Central Asia director
at Human Rights Watch. "The Uzbek authorities have done absolutely nothing
to protect those who are uncovering important facts about the massacre."

At 4 p.m. on Monday, Volosevich received a telephone call at home from an
unidentified male caller. The caller claimed he had come from Andijan and
said he had material of interest to Volosevich. Volosevich asked how the man
knew his home telephone number, but the caller declined to answer, saying
only that he would explain when they met. The two agreed to meet an hour
later not far from Volosevich's apartment.

As Volosevich walked toward the appointed meeting place, five men approached
him. One man asked Volosevich if he had a cigarette. Just as Volosevich was
answering, the men jumped him. One tripped him, knocking him to the ground.
They threw paint in Volosevich's face and poured several buckets of
indelible paint on him. As the men ran away, one of them shouted, "You won't
sell out your country anymore!"

When Volosevich returned home, he saw a young man running away from the
entrance to his building. Inside, he saw that the entryway and the door to
his apartment were covered in paint. The walls were covered with graffiti,
including the curse words, "sell-out journalist" and "Jew." The graffiti
said that Volosevich-who is an ethnic Russian-doesn't understand Islam, the
predominant religion in Uzbekistan.

Volosevich told Human Rights Watch that he understood the attack as
retribution for his reporting, particularly his reporting on the Andijan
events and their aftermath, including the trial of 15 defendants accused of
organizing the Andijan events, which is ongoing in the Supreme Court.

Two weeks ago, an article appeared in a government-controlled newspaper that
criticized Volosevich and his reporting on the Supreme Court trial. The
article appeared only days after Volosevich had published the opinions of
several commentators highly critical of the trial. Volosevich also told
Human Rights Watch that for several days around that same time, he could not
gain access to any material on the fergana.ru website on his home computer.
Every time he clicked on a link, the same fergana.ru article appeared: one
from several years ago about the journalist Ruslan Sharipov, an outspoken
government critic who had then recently been arrested. The article also
noted the severe difficulties journalists face if they are critical of the
government. Volosevich took this as a warning organized by the authorities
since only the government could interfere with his Internet provider in this
way.

Volosevich also appeared in video footage of Andijan that the prosecution
showed in the Supreme Court trial relating to the Andijan events. The
footage shows Volosevich and other journalists entering the local government
(hokimiat) building in Andijan that had been taken over by gunmen. During
the trial, the prosecution has argued that foreign journalists and local
journalists working for foreign media provided "informational support" to
the terrorists. Government-controlled television also broadcast the video.

"Independent journalists are not safe in Uzbekistan," said Cartner. "The
government has shown its hostility to the press. It has arrested and
intimidated those who report independently and suggested that journalists
bear responsibility for the atrocities in Andijan."

The press service of the National Security Service reported that it has a
mandate to investigate the crime against Volosevich because the incident
involves anti-Semitism. The head of the press service denied that the
security service had any involvement in the attack on Volosevich. Moreover,
he stated that he doubted that the attack could have taken place because
there is no anti-Semitism in Uzbekistan. He speculated that Volosevich could
have set up the attack himself in order to give himself a basis for
receiving political asylum abroad.

Since the Andijan events, the atmosphere for the press has worsened
significantly in Uzbekistan. Journalists and others who have provided
independent accounts of the events in Andijan and called for an
investigation and accountability have faced harassment, arbitrary detention,
criminal charges and physical assaults.

"Suggesting that Volosevich organized an assault on himself is absurd,"
Cartner said. "Attacks on independent journalists are an all-too-real fact
of life in Uzbekistan."

"Instead of blaming Volosevich, the Uzbek government should promptly
investigate the attack and bring charges against those responsible instead
of denying it took place," Cartner added.

Background
On May 13, Uzbek government forces killed hundreds of unarmed protesters as
they fled a demonstration in Andijan, a city in eastern Uzbekistan. The
government has still taken no steps to investigate or hold accountable those
responsible for this atrocity. Instead, it denies all responsibility and
persecutes those who seek an independent and transparent investigation.

In the days following the Andijan massacre, the government detained
journalists, forced them to leave the city and confiscated the notebooks and
recording equipment from several of them. It has arrested locals who
provided assistance to the foreign press and is holding them on criminal
charges. Neighborhood (mahalla) committee members went house to house
warning residents not to speak to journalists about the events.

After his accounts of the Andijan events appeared widely in the foreign
press, the chairman of the Andijan human rights group Appeliatsia
("Appeal"), Saidjahon Zainabitdinov, was arrested on May 21 and charged with
slander, terrorism and preparation or distribution of information
threatening to public security and the public order. He remains in custody
and has had no contact with his lawyer or family.

On August 11, 2005, the government refused entry to Igor Rotar, an
independent journalist who reports on religious freedom for Forum 18. Please
see: http://hrw.org/english/docs/2005/08/12/uzbeki11626.htm.

On August 26, a court sentenced Radio Liberty journalist Nosir Zokir to six
months of imprisonment for insulting a security officer.

On October 26, 2005, the BBC announced that it was forced to close its
Tashkent bureau because of the harassment and persecution of its staff by
the authorities. At least seven BBC correspondents have fled or been forced
to leave Uzbekistan, including foreign correspondent Monica Whitlock, and at
least two Uzbek members of the BBC staff have received political asylum.

For more information, please contact:
In Tashkent, Andrea Berg (German, English, Russian): +998-712-56-02-53
In Tashkent, Allison Gill (English, Russian): +998-712-56-02-53
In New York, Holly Cartner (English): +1-212-216-1288
In New York, Veronika Szente Goldston (English, French, Swedish, Hungarian,
Finnish):
+1-212-216-1271
In London, Anna Richmond (English): +44-20-7713-2788
In Brussels, Vanessa Saenen (English, French, German, Dutch): +3-22-732-2009