Ahmadjan Madmarov's work in Uzbekistan earned him a human rights award in Dublin this week. He talks to Kitty Holland
There's a saying in Uzbekistan: "If you want to see paradise, watch television in Uzbekistan. If you want to see hell, live in Uzbekistan." This comment on how rigorously controlled state television is in the former Soviet republic has grown more gravely accurate in the last year. Though the 16-year regime of President Ilhom Karimov has always had an appalling human rights record, general repression has worsened since May of last year.
On May 13th, 2005, in the eastern city of Andijan, government troops opened fire on thousands of people who were protesting against poverty and lack of freedoms, killing hundreds of them. Despite calls by the UN for an investigation, the government has grown ever more strident in its determination to silence those who might challenge Karimov's absolute authority.
"And yet it is a very beautiful country," says Ahmadjan Madmarov (60), who was yesterday awarded the 2006 Front Line Award for Human Rights Defenders at Risk, at a ceremony in Dublin's City Hall. Front Line, founded in Dublin in 2001 by a former director of Amnesty International Ireland, Mary Lawlor, is dedicated to the protection of human rights defenders across the world.
Uzbekistan is a land-locked nation, north of Afghanistan. This is the land of Samarkand, referred to in ancient Arab manuscripts as the "gem of the East", and of which Alexander the Great is reputed to have said: "I . . . never thought that it could be so beautiful and majestic." During the Soviet era its grains and cotton - or "white gold" - were heavily cultivated, resulting in pollution and dessication of its fertile plains. It gained independence in 1991 and Karimov has been in power ever since.
Madmarov was a manufacturing plant director in the troubled Fergana Valley region in eastern Uzbekistan and involved in helping people on such issues as legal rights. Things were bad under the Soviet Union and independence gave rise to hopes of better things.
"But in about 1994 to 1995, things began to disintegrate as the state became more and more based on corruption and persecution of freedoms," says Madmarov. Although more than 88 per cent of the 25 million Uzbeks are Muslim, overt Muslim activity - even prayer - was "the enemy of the State".
"No one would protect Muslims," says Madmarov. "Girls in schools were expelled for wearing headscarves; people who prayed openly were arrested; men with beards were harassed." Even the CIA, which regards the Uzbek president as an ally in its campaign against al-Qaeda, describes the government as "authoritarian . . . with little power outside the executive branch".
Craig Murray, the former British ambassador to the capital, Tashkent, who was recalled to London for speaking out about human rights abuses there, said: "The situation in Uzbekistan is dire. There is no free media in Uzbekistan. None. There is no legal opposition in Uzbekistan. None."
As the anniversary of the Andijan massacre approached in May, Amnesty International referred to "the ongoing repression of civil society". Human Rights Watch commented: "The government continues its practice of controlling, intimidating, and arbitrarily suspending or interfering with the work of civil society, the media, human rights activists and opposition political parties."
Sitting in the Dublin office of Front Line this week, Ahmadjan tells how he sneaked out of Uzbekistan to come to receive the award in Dublin on the pretext that he was travelling for medical treatment in neighbouring Kyrgystan. A visa was applied for through the Irish Embassy in Switzerland. It was issued through the embassy in Moscow, and couriered to him in Kyrgystan.
"I couldn't bring any suit or clothes because the border guards would have asked what I needed them for. I had to get a new suit here," he says, speaking through an interpreter.
He is a single father of four boys - his wife died in 1988 after a botched Caesarean section. He lost his job due to his activities and at one stage was held under house arrest for a year. Madmarov's sons have been charged with, variously, distributing political leaflets, possessing political books, political activities. In June 1999 his eldest Abdullah, now 34, was sentenced to 18 years for distributing leaflets. Two nephews were also imprisoned. His youngest is now in Switzerland seeking asylum.
He has considered giving up his human rights work. "I went to visit my sons and said that by doing what I was doing all these misfortunes were happening. They said, 'Father, there are three or four of us. By your work you are helping thousands of people. You must think about our people who have to put up with what is happening in our country.'"
NOW REGIONAL CHAIRMAN of the Independent Human Rights Organisation of Uzbekistan (NOPCHU), one of the few registered human rights organisations in Uzbekistan, Madmarov has addressed the European Central Bank and calls for international sanctions against his country's government. He is not in favour of an uprising by his people, fearing this would result in bloodshed of the most vulnerable. "Political pressure from other states is what is needed at the moment."
However, former ambassador Murray speaks of the "absolute failure of the West to tackle or even acknowledge what is happening in Uzbekistan . . . the West has got itself into bed with an absolutely appalling dictatorship . . . which is not going to reform." Madmarov is optimistic, though.
"There is an election in 2007 and I believe we will choose the right path. I see a people who will have a chance to experience paradise, and not just watch it on television."