OSCE media freedom representative urges Uzbek government to dismiss journalist's 10-year prison sentence

VIENNA, 15 October 2008 - The OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media, Miklos Haraszti, today asked the Uzbek government to review on appeal the 10-year prison sentence handed to well-known journalist Salidzhon Abdurakhmanov, who was convicted on narcotics possession charges.

"The charges against Abdurakhmanov were made-up, and his trial did not stand the scrutiny of a fair procedure," Haraszti wrote in a letter to Uzbek Foreign Minister Vladimir Norov.

Abdurakhmanov, a contributing journalist for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Voice of America and Uznews.net, was arrested on 7 June, reportedly on his way to Tashkent to participate in an international seminar on media freedom that Haraszti was attending. The police had brought a film crew to document the finding of a package of narcotics in the trunk of Abdurakhmanov's car.

Abdurakhmanov, who maintained he was innocent and that the drugs had been planted in his car, was convicted on 10 October in a Nukus district court on charges of possession of narcotics with the intent to distribute.

In his letter to Norov, Haraszti detailed aspects of the sentencing that he said indicated the need for review. He noted that no reliable evidence had implicated the 58-year-old Abdurakhmanov, a father of six, in use or sale of narcotics. Abdurakhmanov had never been accused of a similar offence. After a blood test found no traces of drugs in his system, the charge of narcotics use was changed to possession with the intent to distribute. Moreover, his fingerprints were not found on the package containing the drugs.

Law enforcement officials did not establish where he could have obtained the narcotics, but instead focused their questions on Abdurakhmanov's journalistic activities, added Haraszti.

"Punishing a journalist for his work with the help of fictitious criminal charges is a practice that should belong to the times before the OSCE's foundation. I hope that the authorities of Uzbekistan will dismiss Abrudakhmanov's sentence. Doing so would forcefully prove Uzbekistan's adherence to its OSCE commitments," Haraszti wrote.