The Kashkadarya Regional Criminal Court on 12 April sentenced Mehrinisso Hamdamova, her sister Zulkhumor Hamdamova, and Shakhlo Rakhmatova (a relative of the two sisters) to a labour camp, seven years in Mehrinisso’s case and six and half for the two other women. All three worshipped at the Kuk-Gumbaz mosque in Karshi [Qarshi], the region's central city, and all three were convicted for violating Article 159 of the Uzbekistan Penal Code (attempting to change the constitutional order of Uzbekistan), by organising unauthorised religious meetings.
Local sources told Forum 18 that the Kashkadarya regional branch of the National Security Service (NSS), Uzbekistan’s secret police, told the women’s relatives that if they appealed the decision, the court "will give longer sentences.”
After months in detention, the women were tried in camera without due process, and this despite the fact that their defence lawyers had brought 21 witnesses who testified that the meetings they had organised were strictly of a religious nature.
A dreadful fate awaits them because once in an Uzbek labour camp, prisoners have few rights. Forced to live and work under appalling hygienic conditions, inmates can expect guards to beat them. If that was not bad enough, they will have to put up with organised gangs who run the camps from the inside. Above all, they will not be able to practice their religion since they cannot pray openly or receive visits from clergy.
They are not alone in their predicament. About 40 Muslims are awaiting trial for reading works by Islamic theologian Said Nursi.
Tohar Haydarov, a member of an unregistered Baptist Church, does not have to wait any more. The Regional Criminal Court in Syrdarya rejected on 13 April his appeal against a ten-year sentence on trumpeted up drug charges.
According to local sources, his defence lawyer presented written documents to the court that showed how the case was totally fabricated, including evidence that procedural rules and regulations were violated 243 times.
Haydarov has a previous conviction. In January 2001, he was sentenced to five and a half years for of theft and "attracting minors into anti-social activity", but was eventually freed under an amnesty in October 2001 that expunged the conviction.
Other Christians have been sentenced to brief periods in prison for their religious activities. In the southern region of Syrkhandarya, Protestant Azamat Rajapov and Abdusattor Kurbonov were given 15 days in prison for “religious activity”.
In order to keep in check “unauthorised” religious activity, the authorities frequently impose short sentences, ranging from five to 15 days.
The UN Human Rights Committee has recently expressed concern over Uzbekistan's limitations and restrictions on freedom of religion and belief, calling on the Central Asian nation to stop imposing prison terms on people for unauthorised religious activity.