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UZBEKISTAN SEEKS RETURN OF REFUGEES FROM ITS 13 MAY MASSACRE, MAY TORTURE OR EXECUTE HUMAN RIGHTS ADVOCATES
8 July 2005

The Uzbek regime is putting pressure on Kyrgyz authorities to return a number of Uzbek citizens who fled the country to escape the state's massacre of demonstrators on 13 May 2005 in the city of Andizhan. In early June, Kyrgizstan did return a handful of these refugees to Uzbek authorities. Four asylum seekers were returned, and all have since "disappeared" in Uzbek custody; their fate remains unknown.

Kyrgyzstan is part to international treaties prohibiting the return of refugees to a nation where they might be tortured, and the fate of the first four returned refugees is a clear signal that Kyrgyzstan would be violating international law if it were to return the remaining asylum seekers to Uzbek authorities. Human Rights Watch is calling for the central Asian Shanghai Cooperation Organization to condemn the Uzbek government for the massacre and for its subsequent attempts to cover up the affair in the international community by hunting down those who escaped the regime's iron fist.

On 5 July, Human Rights Watch also specifically called on Kazakhstan not to deport Lutfullo Shamsudinov, an Uzbek human rights advocate who was also forced to flee the Andizhan massacre. Islam Karimov, the Uzbek dictator, visited Kazakhstan on 4 July, prompting the Kazakh government to detain Shamsudinov in response to a request for his extradition, despite the fact that the UNHCR had already recognized him as a political refugee and was "in the process of resettling him to a third country".

It appears clear that Shamsudinov could face a terrible fate if returned to Uzbekistan, and Kazakhstan, like Kyrgyzstan would be in violation of international law were it to deport the human rights advocate. The world should turn its attention now to these events in central Asia, in hopes of preventing the fulfilment of an unjustifiable massacre of those who believe the totalitarian regime of Islam Karimov should not have the power to kill, torture or persecute its citizens for speaking up for basic human rights and calling for reform. [For more: HRW]