Amnesty International slams government over capital punishment

Amnesty International (AI) has accused the Uzbek government of widespread human rights violations in its application of death sentences, and called on the authoritarian regime of President Islam Karimov to take immediate steps towards a moratorium on capital punishment. "The criminal justice system in Uzbekistan is seriously flawed. Torture is systematic, 'confessions' forced under torture are routinely used as evidence in trials, and corruption is notorious," Anna Sunder-Plassman, a researcher for the watchdog group's Central Asian division, told IRIN from London on Tuesday. "Death penalty cases are the tip of the iceberg and represent the most fatal consequences of Uzbekistan's flawed justice system." Her comments coincide with the release the same day of an AI report entitled "Justice only in heaven - the death penalty in Uzbekistan", highlighting some of the worst and most fatal consequences of the country's justice system, with scores of people executed each year after unfair trials. "The way the criminal justice system functions in Uzbekistan, it seems obvious that it is completely irresponsible to continue to apply the death penalty," Sundar-Plassman said, adding that retaining capital punishment could never rule out the possibility of judicial error. AI cited numerous cases in which it said people had been sentenced to death in violation of both Uzbek and international laws, adding that Uzbek police routinely extracted confessions by means of torture and held detainees incommunicado. "We have recorded several cases per year, but we believe that a substantive proportion of death penalty cases never make it into our statistics," the AI official said, noting that some rights groups believe the number of executions each year could be as high as 400. According to AI, the death penalty played an important role in the government's crackdown on dissident Muslims it had branded as religious extremists. At least 38 men had been sentenced to death since 1998 for alleged religious extremism, it said. "We have documented dozens of cases with a political background. These people were accused of religious extremism and sentenced to death following trials that fell short of international standards," Sunder-Plassman asserted, adding that the death penalty was handed down in non-political cases as well, often accompanied by doubts as to whether the defendant's guilt had been fully proven. The report went on to criticise the Uzbek authorities for what it described as "cruel, inhuman and degrading" treatment of the relatives of death-row prisoners, saying family and friends were often not informed about the date of the execution or the burial place, and were denied a final meeting with their loved one. Many families had been searching for the graves of their relatives for years, it added. Uzbekistan, a staunch ally in America's war on terrorism, has recently faced a barrage of international criticism for its poor human rights record, with many calling on Washington to take a stronger stand against Central Asia's most populous state. But Sunder-Plassman confirmed that international pressure had had an effect. "At least 11 death sentences have been reversed in cases that have been taken up by local human rights activists and raised by AI and the international community over the past three years," she maintained, noting however, that scores of people were still being executed, often in cases where AI had documented serious violations that had never been fully investigated by the authorities. She called on the international community to address the death penalty in Uzbekistan and human rights violations surrounding it as a matter of priority, by urging the government to implement policies to address the root of the problems related to capital punishment. Such engagement would also be in line with recommendations by the UN special rapporteur on torture, who visited the country last year, she explained, noting that in his report, he had stressed that abolition of the death penalty would be a positive step towards respect for the prohibition of torture there. [Full copy of the AI report]