Can you support human rights defenders?
| Elena confirms that the pandemic makes human rights monitoring more difficult, but what you may not expect to hear is how. Support human rights defenders with their legal costs. Elena was with her colleagues out in Uzbekistan’s countryside gathering information on the use of child labor in the cotton fields, which the government has been celebrated for ending, when they noticed that they were being pursued. The pursuit turned into witness intimidation, and then she reports being restrained, shouted at in each ear simultaneously by two regional officials, and taken to be forcibly tested for COVID-19. She was placed into compulsory isolation at home where a police officer has been stationed outside ever since. |
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| Neither Elena, nor any of the activists with her, believe that COVID-19 is the reason for their compulsory isolation but that it is a pretext to isolate them and prevent their human rights work. Why? Because Uzbekistan’s authorities have a history of harassing human rights monitors and just three days before the incident, the government had categorized the region in which they were detained free of coronavirus, with not one single case. Despite being given a certificate stating that she has had secondary contact with coronavirus via a police officer, Elena is yet to receive her test results, and none of the activists’ family members who live with them were tested for the virus. Can you chip in so that Elena and her fellow activists can defend themselves? |
| June 7, 2020 : Human defenders peacefully conducted human rights monitoring before they were arrested in the Pop district, village Chadak, Namangan region. |
| Elena needs $400 to pay for a lawyer to file complaints. Our partners at the Uzbek Forum for Human Rights contacted another person involved in the events, activist Bekzod Norboev, who said that he was severely beaten on June 7 in detention. “Police officers took us to the district sanitation department where they forced us to take a coronavirus test. They assaulted and kicked me. I still have bruises,” he said in a telephone interview. “Children weeding cotton fields have to work because of poverty”, Norboev said. They usually come with their parents and receive 30,000 soum (approximately 3 USD) for weeding all day long. Norboev is unable to have a medical examination to document his injuries from the beatings because he too is not permitted to leave his house. |
| CHIP IN |
| Perhaps you remember Elena? We campaigned to free her from a psychiatric institution where she had been detained and subjected to punitive psychiatric treatment against her will. This happened just before she was due to meet with a delegation from the International Trade Union Confederation and the World Bank Group to share information concerning the Uzbek Government’s then wide-spread use of forced labor. We launched a campaign alongside our partners, the Cotton Campaign, and she was released after 23 days’ detention. Over the years, Elena has been imprisoned multiple times by the Uzbek authorities for speaking out. I had the fortune to meet her when I traveled to Uzbekistan as part of the first delegation of representatives of campaign groups in 2018. The invitation signaled a ground-breaking shift in the government’s approach to forced labor towards its eradication. However, whilst we celebrate and encourage progress, we must ensure that activists at the front-line like, Elena and her colleagues, are able to carry out their important work throughout the country without fear of intimidation, threat or penalty. We have raised their case at the highest levels of government through the Cotton Campaign coalition; meanwhile we’re asking if you can support their defense. Chip in so Elena and activist can get legal advice. We’ll keep track of how much is raised and if you see our target is already hit, you can still give to support our work to end forced labor in the cotton industry. In solidarity Joanna and the Freedom United team |
