An international group of intellectuals urged the president of Uzbekistan on Thursday to release three women jailed for their human rights advocacy amid a sweeping crackdown on government critics.
The group that includes writers, artists and former dissidents from European countries and former Soviet republics, urged President Islam Karimov in an open letter to «sway his power for humanitarian purposes» and order the release of Gulbakhor Turayeva, Mutabar Tajiboeva and Umida Niyazova.
«These women are being subjected to unlawful methods of psychological and physical pressure which contradict international norms on the treatment of prisoners,» the letter said.
Niyazova, a human rights defender and journalist, was arrested in January on charges of illegal border crossing and smuggling after authorities confiscated her computer with information on rights abuses and torture in prisons in the tightly controlled former Soviet republic.
Turayeva, a doctor and rights advocate, was also arrested in January. The authorities charged her with possession of banned literature months after she claimed to have seen hundreds of bodies of victims of the bloody government crackdown on the May 2005 uprising in the city of Andijan.
Tajiboeva, a rights advocate who worked with families of victims of the Andijan crackdown, was sentenced in February 2006 to eight years in prison on more than a dozen charges she called trumped up. Her family said the mother of four was threatened, tortured and placed in a psychiatric ward for misconduct.
Karimov’s government has faced international isolation after the Andijan uprising, during which rights groups and witnesses say more than 700 people were killed by government troops. Authorities insist fewer than 200 were killed and blame Islamic militants.
At least 250 men have been convicted for allegedly organizing the Andijan protests, according to New York-based Human Rights Watch.
«We call upon you to demonstrate the same sense of leniency with these women that you have shown with respect to former high-ranking government employees who have been pardoned and released from prison despite the fact of being proven guilty,» the letter said.
Uzbek authorities have closed down and evicted dozens of foreign-funded aid groups and media outlets accusing them of siding with Islamic terrorists and waging an «information war» against the country.
Karimov, a Communist boss who resisted the 1991 Soviet collapse, has ruled the Central Asian nation with an iron fist, eliminating opposition and silencing government critics.
Copyright © 2007 The Associated Press.