Freedom of religion and belief, with interlinked freedoms of expression, association, and assembly, remains severely restricted in Uzbekistan. Forum 18 s survey analysis documents violations including: jailing and torturing prisoners of conscience whose only crime is to exercise their freedom of religion and belief; banning education and worship meetings without state permission; complete state control of all expressions of Islam; and religious literature censorship and destruction.
Four Muslim men jailed for up to six years in a labour camp after meeting together to learn how to pray, to discuss Islamic topics such as prayer, fasting, peaceful jihad, good deeds and other matters, and to attend a mosque. This is the latest known case where Muslim men who met to pray and discuss their faith have been jailed with the use of a police agent provocateur.
A Tashkent court handed 47-year-old Odilbek Khojabekov a five year labour camp sentence to punish him for returning from haj pilgrimage with Islamic literature. A first trial gave him a suspended sentence which was later removed for good probation behaviour. The SSS secret police then pressured ordinary police, prosecutors, and others into giving what the family insists is false testimony at a second trial which jailed him. He is in hiding fearing for his safety. Separately, two prisoners of conscience continue to be tortured and one went on hunger strike.
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13 May 2021
Mushfig Bayram, Forum 18
In late April the Deputy Headteacher of a Bukhara school rang Muslim parents to say that the ordinary police and the SSS secret police had visited to ask how religiously devout families and children are . Parents were warned of unspecified consequences if they teach Islam to their children, or any of their children wear the hijab. Human rights defenders have heard unconfirmed accounts that the ordinary police and SSS secret police are making similar visits to schools in other parts of the country to ask similar questions.
In late April the Deputy Headteacher of one state school in the southern city of Bukhara rang Muslim parents of at least 20 pupils at two state schools, Schools No. 14 and No. 33, stating that earlier in the month the ordinary police and the State Security Service (SSS) secret police had visited both schools. The police and SSS had asked teachers how religiously devout families and children are, and if parents influence the