Human Rights Watch
Muhammad Bekjanov, 62, is one of the world’s longest-imprisoned journalists. He was abducted by Uzbek security services in March 1999 in Kyiv, Ukraine, where he had fled to publish a banned opposition party’s newspaper and forcibly returned to Uzbekistan. He was charged with nine offenses, including “threatening the constitutional order.”
Authorities barred observers from attending his trial in Tashkent, holding Bekjanov incommunicado, and torturing him and other defendants to extract confessions. They were subjected to electric shocks, beatings and suffocation. Authorities also threatened to rape their wives.
In March 1999, Bekjanov was sentenced to 15 years, later reduced on appeal to 13. He was sent to Jaslyk, Uzbekistan’s most notorious prison, where guards repeatedly tortured him and where he contracted tuberculosis. He was denied medical attention after suffering a broken leg during a beating, and suffered hearing loss after ill-treatment. In 2006, his wife, Nina, visited him and reported he had lost most of his teeth from repeated beatings. He was later transferred to a prison in Navoi.
Just days before his jail term was set to expire in 2012, prison authorities extended his sentence by another five years, allegedly for unauthorized possession of nail clippers.
Muhammad Bekjanov, 62, is one of the world’s longest-imprisoned journalists. He was abducted by Uzbek security services in March 1999 in Kyiv, Ukraine, where he had fled to publish a banned opposition party’s newspaper and forcibly returned to Uzbekistan. He was charged with nine offenses, including “threatening the constitutional order.”
Authorities barred observers from attending his trial in Tashkent, holding Bekjanov incommunicado, and torturing him and other defendants to extract confessions. They were subjected to electric shocks, beatings and suffocation. Authorities also threatened to rape their wives.
In March 1999, Bekjanov was sentenced to 15 years, later reduced on appeal to 13. He was sent to Jaslyk, Uzbekistan’s most notorious prison, where guards repeatedly tortured him and where he contracted tuberculosis. He was denied medical attention after suffering a broken leg during a beating, and suffered hearing loss after ill-treatment. In 2006, his wife, Nina, visited him and reported he had lost most of his teeth from repeated beatings. He was later transferred to a prison in Navoi.
Just days before his jail term was set to expire in 2012, prison authorities extended his sentence by another five years, allegedly for unauthorized possession of nail clippers.
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