European human rights court rules for Uzbeks

Russian rights groups cheered a rare victory on Tuesday after the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruled that 12 Uzbek businessmen were denied due process as local police tried to extradite them to Uzbekistan.

In June, 2005 police in Ivanovo, a town in central Russia, held a group of Uzbek immigrants in a stationhouse where the men say visiting Uzbek authorities tried to coerce false confessions out of them with cattle prods and threats of torture.

The Ivanovo Uzbeks, as the men came to be known, were never charged with a crime in Russia, though one day after their detention documents from Uzbekistan arrived accusing them of murder, conspiracy to overthrow the government and terrorism.

Moscow-based rights' groups Memorial and the Civic Assistance Front took up the men's plight and appealed to the ECHR in France to prevent their extradition, saying they had proof the case was an instance of "buying and selling people".

"The European Court of Human Rights is not only the last but, as unfortunate as it is to admit, the only means of defence for people caught in these kinds of situations," said Elena Ryabinina, Memorial's Central Asia refugee aid director.

In May, 2005, witnesses said hundreds of people were killed when troops fired on a demonstration in Andizhan, Uzbekistan. Uzbek President Islam Karimov blamed the violence on Islamist rebels. He said 187 mostly rebels and security forces died.

Uzbek authorities eventually charged the men, who run a small textile business, with funding the events in Andizhan, though all of the men were in Russia at the time and all deny involvement.

The EHCR voted six to one on April 24 in favour of the Ivanovo Uzbeks, noting "that Uzbek officials had threatened the applicants with torture," and chastising a Russian court for failing to observe the presumption of innocence.

Karimov, in power since 1989, is criticised in the West for not tolerating dissent and violating basic liberties. The U.N. torture watchdog accused Uzbek police and prison staff of the "routine use of torture" in a November 2007 report.

Karimov has denied the allegations. The United Nations High Commission for refugees granted the Ivanovo Uzbeks mandate refugee status, meaning they have UNHCR protection in another country, in this case Switzerland.

Ryabinina said Russian complicity in the case of the Ivanovo Uzbeks was the result of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), a regional treaty group meant to fight terrorism but used to solve internal political issues by nonjudicial extraditions.

"They have created this practical legal basis which, in my view, has been established in order to legally justify these expulsions," she said.

The SCO is made up of Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.

Russia has the option to appeal the ECHR's ruling in favour of the Ivanovo Uzbeks, who were each also awarded 15,000 euros plus a small stipend for legal fees.