06.10.10 23:27
Uznews.net – Hearings into a case against the Voice of America’s only correspondent in Uzbekistan, Abdumalik Boboyev, will start soon. In an interview with Uznews.net, the journalist explains why he had ended up in the dock.
[Q]: You and five other journalists were summoned to the Tashkent city prosecutor’s office on 7 January. What happened then?
[A]: That was an unofficial summons as no-one received a written warrant. They simply called us over the telephone. Initially I decided not to go, but when the guys who went there told me that the prosecutor’s office demanded letters of explanation about our journalistic activities, I wrote one and took it to the prosecutor’s office, but I did not see anyone there.
[Q]: Were you worried about this summons to the prosecutor’s office?
[A]: No, I did not pay attention to it. I just thought that they just wanted to intimidate us, and I continued my work.
[Q]: What happened after that?
[A]: On 5 May I went to Kazakhstan on private business. There was a huge queue near the border post on the Uzbek side. While waiting in the queue to cross the border, I took few photos on my mobile.
People in plain clothes immediately approached and detained me. I spent several hours on the border, and I was later sent to Tashkent Region’s Kibray District police department where I was held for several more hours.
It turned out then that when I went to Kazakhstan on 27 January, an Uzbek border guard for some reason did not stamp my passport to certify that I legally crossed the border crossing and returned to the country.
My documents were seized along with my mobile and voice recorder, and I paid a fine worth some 38,000 sums, and I was set free. On 20 May I received a summons from the prosecutor’s office. They claimed that they needed a photocopy of my passport.
Some time at the beginning of June I submitted my passport to the district passport authorities to receive a new one as there were no pages left for visas. When I went to pick up a new passport, I was told that it had been requested by the prosecutor’s office, which told me – when I went to them – that my passport had been sent to the Uzbek National Security Committee’s Border Service for checking.
[Q] What result has this check produced?
[A]: It dragged until September, when I was summoned by investigator of the Tashkent prosecutor’s office Husan Husanov who told me that he had opened a case against me under Article 223 of the Criminal Code – illegal crossing the border. This did not put me on the alert either, because I had a stamp by the Kazakh Border Service that certified that I crossed the border legally. I was convinced that I could prove my innocence.
[Q]: How did other charges emerge?
[A]: First time I went to the prosecutor’s office without a lawyer.
When I hired a lawyer and went to the prosecutor’s office together, Husanov showed me a resolution on the opening of a criminal case on absolutely different charges that concerned my professional activities as a journalist: libel, slander and producing or distributing materials threatening public security or order.
The last charge is under Part 1 of Article 244 of the Criminal Code. Initially the investigation charged me under Part 1 of this article, but when I refused to made a plea for clemency, the investigator immediately replaced the charges under Part 1 with the charges under Part 3, Items B and C. This means I have allegedly produced and distributed materials threatening public security by abusing my office and using financial support from abroad.
And now I am facing from five to eight years in prison under this article.
The charges are based on an expert opinion formed by the Uzbek Telecommunications and Information Technology Agency’s Centre for Monitoring the Media on the basis of my materials I prepared back in 2009.
None of them contains my personal judgement but they only presented the opinions of representatives of international organisations, civil society, the opposition, independent experts and human rights groups. Moreover, my materials reflected the government’s point of view too – I used information published [officially] to maintain balance.
[Q]: Didn’t you think about leaving Uzbekistan?
[A]: If [the only option is] leaving, then I should have done this earlier. I do not want to flee now. The case was opened and I now have to defend myself.
[Q] What’s the future of journalism in Uzbekistan?
[A]: I think that the number of independent journalists will shrink further, although there are already only few people continuing to work. The authorities do not want to see independent journalists and is open about it. I and my case are the first to be opened against those who were summoned to the prosecutor’s office in January 2010. I think it will be exemplary: what happens to me will happen to others.
[Q]: You have four children. Do you want at least one of them to follow your path and become a journalist?
[A]: No, in the current circumstances I do not want my children to be journalists in Uzbekistan.
Uznews.net’s dossier:
Abdumalik Boboyev was born in the town of Urgut in Samarkand Region in 1969. He graduated from the department of Uzbek philology of the Tashkent State University in 2000.
He started his journalistic career as student in 1997. He worked for national newspapers such as Tong Yulduzi, Turkiston, Uzbekiston Ovozi, Ishonch, Sa’do and Yozuvchi.
In 2000 he started working for the Institute for War and Peace Reporting and Uzbekistan’s first independent website tribuna.uz.
In 2002 he moved to the Voice of America Uzbek Service, and after the service was abolished in 2005 he worked for Uznews.net and in 2006 he resumed his work with the Voice of America.
Boboyev is married and has four children: the youngest is two years and two months old and the eldest is 15 years old.
Link to the article: http://uznews.net/article_single.php?lng=en&cid=23&aid=735
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