(Translated by https://www.hiragana.jp/)
Reporters Without Borders - Jusuf Ruzimuradov

The Wayback Machine - https://web.archive.org/web/20110811130420/http://en.rsf.org/petition-jusuf-ruzimuradov,80.html

Reporters Without Borders

Home page - Signer les pétitions

Jusuf Ruzimuradov

Published on 6 May 2002

Send

HE The Uzbek Ambassador,

Dear Ambassador,

May I draw your attention to the case of the journalist Jusuf Ruzimuradov, who was jailed on 18 August 1999? To the best of my knowledge, he was simply exercising his right to freedom of expression, guaranteed by Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. I therefore call on you to take steps to ensure his release.

Yours sincerely,

Pétition Reporters sans frontières

Il y a 702 signatures.

He is the editor of Erk, the last opposition newspaper in Uzbekistan until it was banned by the authorities in 1993, and he was jailed on 18 August 1999 in the wave of repression after the failed assassination attempt on President Islam Karimov in Tashkent on 16 February 1999.

Karimov crushed all dissidence on the pretext that there was an Islamic fundamentalist threat in the region. Ruzimuradov was jailed for eight years for "participating in an illegal organisation" and insulting the president in the media. The US organisation Human Rights Watch says he and others arrested the same day have been "cruelly and continuously tortured" in prison.

Members of their families have been threatened with rape and ill-treatment and psychological pressure have been used to extract "confessions."

Sponsors:

France: Le Républicain lorrain