By Kristy Tridhavee
Impunity Watch Senior Desk Officer, Asia

TASHKENT, Uzbekistan – Although Uzbek Human Rights Activist Mutabar Tojibaeva was released from the Tashkent City Prison 6 months ago, she regularly has nightmares of her three year stay in the jail, which included 112 days in solitary confinement.

In 2005 Tojibaeva openly criticized the Uzbek government after the massacre in Andijan.  In Andijan the Uzbek government attempted to stop an antigovernment uprising.  She condemned the shooting of hundreds of mostly unarmed civilians by government forces.  Tojibaeva is the head of the Burning Hearts Club, an unregistered nongovernmental organization (NGO) in the city of Margilan.  She has also helped ordinary people seek justice, and she has also monitored trials and published reports on illegal child labor.

Tojibaeva was later arrested and was charged with 17 counts of criminal activity, which included slander, extortion, tax evasion, polluting the environment and membership in an illegal organization – her own unregistered NGO.  4 months after her arrest she was sentenced to eight years in prison.

In 2007, prison authorities placed Tojibaeva in the prison’s psychiatric ward without informing her lawyers.  Prison authorities forced Tojibaeva to take daily medication. Her family also told Human Rights Watch (HRW) that she was forced to spend 40 straight days in the ShIZO (punishment cell), causing her health to deteriorate. Tojibaeva was later diagnosed with cancer and on March 18, 2008, had surgery at the Tashkent Oncological Hospital.  Soon after Tojibaeva was released for health reasons and must continue to serve a three year suspended sentence.

Recalling her experience in prison, Tojibaeva said, “Those classified as political prisoners, such as practicing Muslims or government critics, face ill-treatment and torture.  They are subject to verbal abuse, as well as physical and psychological pressure. Prison workers treat them like animals.  They never get proper food.  Prison food largely consists of boiled porridge and cabbage soup. Inmates have to wait for hours — sometimes in the snow or rain — outside the prison canteen to get lunch or dinner.”

HRW has honored Tojibaeva with the Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders.  The award is a unique collaboration among 10 of the world’s leading human rights organizations to give protection to human rights defenders worldwide.  The chairman of the jury of the Martin Ennals Award, Hans Thoolen, described Tojibaeva as “an exceptionally brave woman in a country where standing up for human rights is a dangerous activity that can lead to imprisonment and death; where human rights defenders often have to choose between prison or exile.”

Presently, Tojibaeva is in Germany receiving medical treatment but does not plan on staying in the country long.  Tojibaeva says she will return to Uzbekistan to continue her campaign to improve the human rights situation.

For more information, please see:

Daily Times – Uzbek Activist Jailed for 10 Years – 24 October 2008

Eurasia – Arrests, Beatings, Torture All Party of Job Description for Uzbek Rights Activists – 15 November 2008

Human Rights Watch – Uzbek Human Rights Activist Honored – 15 May 2008

By Ariel Lin
Impunity Watch Reporter, Asia

BEIJING, China – Arzigul Tursun, a Uyghyr woman who is six months pregnant with her third child, is forced to have abortion in China, according to human rights groups.  She fled from a local hospital to avoid a forced abortion.  But she has been found by police and taken under guard to a larger hospital, where she was scheduled to undergo an abortion against her will, according to her husband, Nurmemet Tohtasin.  “The police found my wife,” he said in a telephone interview from the Women and Children’s Welfare Hospital in Ili prefecture. He added, “My wife’s father was already at the hospital. They will probably do the abortion today.”

The village chief and party secretary had forced Nurmemet Tohtasin to find his wife after she escaped from the local hospital.  Nurmemet took officials to two of Tursun’s relatives’ homes and to her parents’ home.  “They said if we don’t find Arzigul, they would take our house and our farmland,” he said. The local Party secretary, Nurali, and the Dadamtu township mayor, Juret, declined to comment. The case of Arzigul Tursun is raising international attention because she is six months pregnant and an abortion could threaten her health.

According to China’s official news agency, Xinhua, China maintains a one-child-per-family rule on majority Han Chinese, with more flexible rules for ethnic minorities, to contain its massive population of 1.3 billion citizens. According to the One-Child policy, Uyghurs in the countryside are permitted three children while city-dwellers may have two.  Under “special circumstances,” rural families are permitted one more child, although what constitutes special circumstances was unclear.  Besides abortion, the government also uses financial incentives and disincentives to keep the birthrate low.  Couples can also pay steep fines to have more children, although the fines are well beyond most people’s means.

U.S. Rep. Christopher Smith, a New Jersey Republican, wrote China’s ambassador to Washington, Zhou Wenzhong, to demand that “the nightmare of a forced abortion” not be carried out.

For more information, please see:

ABC News – Outrage Over Forced Abortion Case – 17 November 2008

LifeNews – China Officials Trying to Force Woman Six-Months Pregnant to Have Abortion – 14 November 2008

Radio Free Asia – Uyghur Woman Found, Facing Abortion – 17 November 2008

大纪元 – 新疆维族妇女怀孕6月被迫人工流产 – 11月15日2008

By Shayne R. Burnham
Impunity Watch Reporter, Asia

PESHAWAR, Pakistan – Journalist Qari Muhammad Shoaib was shot by Pakistani soldiers while driving his car in Mingora in the Swat Valley of northwest Pakistan.  Pakistani soldiers were stationed in the Swat Valley patrolling the area in response to threats of a suicide attack.

Shoaib was accompanied by a family member driving home.  The family member said, “They shot at us as we reached Airport Road.  We received no indication that we should stop.”  On the other hand, the military stated that warning shots were fired, yet the vehicle did not stop and as a result, they opened fire.  Police official Khaista Rehman said that “the security forces personnel gave him several warnings, he was signalled to stop, then they shouted and also fired shots in the air, but he kept moving towards a military convoy and finally one of the bullets hit him.”  He continued by saying that shots were fired because suicide bombers have attacked in the past in a similar manner.

Military officials said that they regretted the incident and promised to compensate his family.  Shoaib was a reporter for the Khabar Kar daily and survived by two wives, three daughters and a son.

According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, eleven journalists have been killed in Pakistan since 2000.  Several journalists allege that the soldiers fired intentionally at Shoaib stating, “If they had wanted to stop the vehicle they could have shot out the tires.”

Approximately forty journalists protested in Mingora on Sunday, demanding an investigation of the Shoaib shooting.  On Monday and Tuesday, more journalist protesters rallied.  They said that many journalists have been killed for no reason except performing their professional duties.  They also criticized the government for not providing protection to journalists and demanded that the soldiers involved in Shoaib’s killing be arrested and punished.

For more information, please see:

BBC News – Pakistan Troops ‘Kill Journalist’ – 10 November 2008

Daily Times – Journalists Protests Colleague’s Killing – 11 November 2008

Pakistan Times – Security Forces Kill Seven Militants in Swat – 11 November 2008

Reporters Without Borders – Journalist Shot Dead in the Swat Valley – 10 November 2008

By Shayne R. Burnham
Impunity Watch Reporter, Asia

KABUL, Afghanistan – Melissa Fung, a 35 year old reporter for Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), was released after being held hostage for nearly four weeks on Saturday.

Fung was on her way to a U.N. refugee camp in outer Kabul when she was kidnapped and forced to the western part of Afghanistan.  CBC News publisher John Cruickshank said in a statement, “She had been in a refugee camp.  She’d been doing some reporting on conditions there and on difficulties in Kabul, and essentially, as she left the camp, within a couple of blocks of a police station, they pulled up in a van, jumped out and overpowered her and took her.”

Fung was held in the region of Wardak, located 50 kilometers southwest of Kabul, and controlled by the Taliban.  Fung stated that she was held in a small “cave.”  It was so small that she could barely stand.  She said that they dug a small hole which turned into a tunnel, then opened to a room.  She said that her abductors never mistreated her except for when they chained her.  For the first three weeks of being kidnapped, they guarded her constantly, but during the last week, they chained her arms and legs and then abandoned her.

Susan Ormiston of CBC stated that they received a threatening phone call saying that Fung would be killed if a ransom was not paid or if people in police custody were harmed.  Fung was rescued by the National Directorate of Security (NDS), an Afghan intelligence agency.  NDS arrested three people who were involved in the kidnapping, but seemed to only be middle men.  The agency is still looking for others.

The identity of the kidnappers is still unknown.  Fung said the man who guarded her went by the name “Khaled.”  However, she indicated that she didn’t believe it was his real name.  Fung said, “His friends called him ‘Hezbollah.'”

Hezbollah is a radical Shia group based out of Lebanon and is considered a terrorist organization by the United States.  It has claimed responsibility for numerous terrorist acts, including car bombs, roadside bombs, rockets, booby-traps and suicide attacks.

Despite Fung’s successful release with the help of the Afghan government, kidnappings of Western journalists are on the rise.  Reporters Without Borders said, “We are nonetheless very worried by the recent kidnappings of journalists in Afghanistan, where the security situation has deteriorated dangerously.”

For more information, please see:

CBC News – Kidnapped CBC Journalist Chained in Tiny Chamber Before Release – 9 November 2008

CNN – Freed Canadian Reporter:  I Was Kept in a Cave – 9 November 2008

Reporters Without Borders – Canadian Reporter Freed After Being Held Hostage for 28 Days – 9 November 2008

By Shayne R. Burnham
Impunity Watch Reporter, Asia

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates – Maqbool Fida Husain still fears returning to his native country. Husain, 93, is the most renowned painter in India, though subject to self-imposed exile due to the “controversial” nature of his work. Most notably, he paints Hindu goddesses and in a few of his works, they are nude. This has caused anger on behalf of Hindu nationalists who attacked galleries exhibiting his work, vandalized his work and even offered an $11 million reward for his death. In response to violent threats, Husain removed himself from India and has lived in Dubai for the past two years.

There are three of Husain’s works which have caused most of the backlash from right-wing Hindus. Two are pencil drawings. One depicts Durga, the mother goddess. The other is of Saraswati, the goddess of the arts. Both portray the goddesses faceless and nude. The third, named Mother India, is a painting of a female nude, kneeling on the ground creating the shape of India. Husain believes that nudity is symbolic of purity.

In September 2008, the Supreme Court of India dismissed all charges against Husain. He was accused of obscenity, which under Indian laws, is a criminal offense. However, the Court ruled that Husain’s paintings were not obscene, in fact, nudity was common in Indian iconography. With the Court ruling, Husain looks forward to returning to India stating, “This is not a victory for me only, but one for the Indian contemporary art movement.”

Freedom of expression is one concept that has caused heated debate between democratic ideals and religious and ethnic diversity. Analysts state that most often controversy erupts as a result of politics. For example, last March, Taslima Nasreen, was forced to leave West Bengal after a Muslim political party denounced her novel. Another instance is that of political psychologist, Ashis Nandy. Nandy wrote an article criticizing the victory of Hindu nationalists in state election. The Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party controls the western state of Gujarat, where Nandy was subsequently charged with “promoting enmity between different groups.”

The government has responded to threats and violence by banning the works of art and literature.

For more information, please see:

BBC News – Indian Painter Cleared By Court – 9 September 2008

New York Times – An Artist in Exile Tests India’s Democratic Ideals – 9 November 2008

TIME – Maqbool Fida Husain – 13 August 2007