Employee of British Embassy in Tashkent loses appeal against fine

Leonid Kudryavtsev, press secretary of the British Embassy in Tashkent

A court in Tashkent has dismissed the appeal petition of the press secretary of the British Embassy in Uzbekistan, Leonid Kudryavtsev, who was ordered to pay a large fine for holding meetings with Tashkent human rights campaigners.

On 11 August the appeal panel of the Tashkent city court examined Leonid Kudryavtsev’s appeal and ruled that the decision of the court of first instance must stand, a spokesperson for the British Embassy in Uzbekistan confirmed.

Kudryavtsev was found guilty on 15 July by the Mirzo-Ulugbek district court in Tashkent and ordered to pay a fine equivalent to 80 times the minimum wage. The total fine is 3,978,800 sums, or US$1,620 at unofficial exchange rates.

The court convicted Kudryavtsev under article 210 of Uzkekistan’s civil code - “contravening the laws on organisations holding meetings, street protests and demonstrations”.

His conviction was for holding meetings with human rights activists at the British Embassy in Tashkent.


“We have expressed our deep concern to the Uzbek authorities regarding this case,” a spokesperson from the British Embassy said after the appeal court’s decision was announced.

“We are certain that the routine contact between the Embassy and representatives of civil society which are daily occurrences in British Embassies throughout the world took place entirely in accordance with the 1961 Vienna Convention on diplomatic relations and with Uzbek law,” he added.


Despite the conviction of Mr Kudryavtsev, the British Embassy’s statement includes a commitment to continue its work to improve the human rights situation in Uzbekistan.

The Embassy diplomat did not confirm whether or not meetings with Uzbek human rights campaigners would continue at the Embassy after the conviction of Leonid Kudryavtsev.

He cited the British Foreign Minister William Hague in saying that the defence of human rights is an integral part of the work of the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office and its overseas Embassies.

Human rights campaigners in Tashkent described the conviction of the British Embassy employee as an example of the tactics used by the Uzbek authorities to intimidate foreign diplomats.

Condemnation of Leonid Kudryavtsev’s actions before the trial, was only possible because he is an Uzbek citizen, Tashkent human rights activist Elena Urlaeva believes.

As if to demonstrate the power of the foreign citizen’s passport and position, the Uzbek authorities were involved in a more incident with the German Ambassador in Uzbekistan, Wolfgang Noyen.

On 28 July, Tashkent authorities “detained” Noyen for one and a half hours after he came to the aid of a German company, Tasty Bread, which had been raided by Uzbek law enforcement agencies, sais local website Uzmetronom.com.

The German foreign ministry announced that the incident took place but added the correction that the Ambassador was not “held” by police, but prevented from entering Tasty Bread’s premises.


Link to the article: http://www.uznews.net/news_single.php?lng=en&sub=hot&cid=3&nid=17671