Last edited: February 13, 2005


Uzbekistan Journalists Face Gay ‘Offense’

Gay.com U.K., May 29, 2003

SUMMARY: Three human rights journalists in Uzbekistan may be charged with the “criminal offense” of homosexuality for political reasons, Human Rights Watch said.

Three human rights journalists in Uzbekistan may be charged with the “criminal offense” of homosexuality for what a leading international rights watchdog claims are politically motivated reasons.

The three men were detained on Monday, reports the Associated Press. Ruslan Sharipov, a journalist who leads an independent civil rights group focusing on protecting media freedom, has already been charged with sex abuse and homosexuality. His colleagues Oleg Sarapulov and Azamat Mamankulov have been threatened with similar charges, but have not been formally cited.

U.S. organization Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in a statement that Sharipov’s history of writing critically about the Uzbek government’s policies and past harassment against him and his colleagues raised “strong suspicions” that the charges were politically motivated.

Elizabeth Andersen, the group’s Europe and Central Asian division director, said: “That the authorities would charge him with committing homosexual acts, violating his fundamental rights to nondiscrimination and privacy, makes it doubly egregious.”

Sharipov had told an HRW representative, who had been allowed to visit him in custody, that police had threatened to rape him with a bottle and put a gas mask on him.

Paris-based media watchdog, Reporters Without Borders, has written to Uzbek President Islam Karimov expressing their deep concerns about the arrests. The group’s secretary-general, Robert Menard, called the arrests “a new, sordid way to harass or get rid of critical journalists who have upset the authorities.”

Homosexuality is not uncommon in Uzbekistan but is still regarded as a social taboo. While it is a criminal offense, cases of criminal prosecution are rare.


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