UNHCR spokeswoman Astrid Van Genderen quoted the communication of Uzbek government saying that the agency has "fully implemented its tasks" and that there are "no evident reasons for its further presence in Uzbekistan."
Uzbekistan, a country with a high number of citizens seeking asylum in other countries, also hosts more than 2 000 asylum seekers, mainly from Afghanistan. The refugee agency opened its office in Uzbekistan in 1993 during the 1992-93 civil war in Tajikistan and in northern Afghanistan.
FIDH fears that the decision of the government is linked to steps undertaken by the UNHCR in order to help several hundred Uzbek refugees to win asylum in safe countries following a government crackdown in the eastern Uzbek city of Andijan in May 2005.
Uzbek government continues to make pressure on other countries like Russia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan to get Uzbek citizens, accused of being involved in the Andijan events, captured and returned to Uzbekistan. According to the information received, more than 20 people were already returned, in violation of international standards which prohibit returning refugees to their home countries if they are exposed to risks of torture, inhuman treatment and persecution.
However, UNHCR offices in those countries have granted international protection to some of Uzbek refugees, preventing them from a forced return to a country where their life and safety are at the highest risk. In October 2005 FIDH already presented a horrifying picture of corruption, tortures, falsified trials and inhuman conditions of detention practiced in this country in its International fact-finding mission’s report «The Death Penalty in Uzbekistan: Torture and Secrecy» . UN Committee Against Torture noted already in its concluding observations in 2002 «the particularly large number of complaints of torture or maltreatment and the small number of subsequent convictions». It also noted that «criminal prosecutions in Uzbekistan do not seem to respect the principle of the presumption of innocence and have an inquisitorial character».
The decision of Uzbek government to close down UNHCR is an unprecedented step of hostility towards the UN body, which pushes Uzbekistan even further on the margin of international community. FIDH reminds, that in 2005 Uzbekistan refused a visit of UN Special Reporter on Uzbekistan and never accepted an international fact-finding mission, asked both by European Union and United Nations after the Andijan tragedy.
This closure comes in a context of a up-going isolation of Uzbekistan from international observers and muzzling further more local civil society. The crackdown following the Andijan events focused particularly on human rights defenders and journalists. Indeed, on 16 March 2006 a local representative of German Wave radio station lost his accreditation, while BBC and Voice of America had to leave the country earlier, following other international medias. Last year, human rights defenders have faced increased harassment, surveillance, house arrest, interrogation, arbitrary arrest and criminal charges. Some human rights defenders have faced public trials and heavy sentences. On 6 March 2006, Mrs. Mukhtabar Tojibaeva, Head of the "Ardent Hearts’ Club", a human rights organisation based in Ferghana valley was sentenced to a eight-year prison term. Many defenders and journalists were forced to flee the country fearing persecution (See 2005 Annual Report of the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders (FIDH/OMCT).
FIDH calls Uzbek government to immediately call back the decision to close down UNHCR and more generally, put an end to all acts of harassment against local and international human rights and humanitarian organisations as well as against the civil society of Uzbekistan. FIDH also calls Uzbek government to conform to international and regional mechanisms, and especially to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and to the UN Declaration on Human Rights Defenders.
FIDH calls the United Nations to use all diplomatic and political measures at their disposal to put pressure on Uzbek government in order not to close UNHCR office in Uzbekistan.