CCPR/C/114/D/2234/2013
were denied access to her on several occasions and were not allowed to speak to the author
confidentially. On 24 December 2005, the prosecution informed the author’s lawyers that
her case had been broadened to include 18 charges rather than 2 charges. The author’s
lawyers had only 15 days to study the 13 volumes of the case file before her trial started on
30 January 2006.
2.8
During the trial, the author was not allowed to meet her lawyers outside the court
room. Her lawyers could not call crucial witnesses for her defence, and the Court prevented
cross-examination of key prosecution witnesses. The prosecution failed to provide her
lawyers with three volumes of the relevant evidence and the Court denied the lawyer’s
request for access to these volumes. On 6 March 2006, the Tashkent Criminal Court found
the author guilty of 13 charges and convicted her to eight years’ imprisonment. The appeal
chamber of the criminal division of the Tashkent Regional Court dismissed the author’s
appeal against the verdict on 30 May 2006.
2.9
On 6 March 2006, the author was imprisoned in the women’s ward of Remand
Centre No. 1. On 7 July 2006, she was transferred to a women’s colony, where she
remained until her release on 2 June 2008. Upon her arrival at the colony, she was placed in
a psychiatric ward, together with drug addicts and dangerous criminals. The administration
of the women’s colony argued that, as the author had been in need of medical assistance
during trial, it was best to put her in the psychiatric unit in order for her to adapt to the
women’s colony. The author had neither requested nor needed psychiatric treatment before
or during her trial and no psychiatric assessment of the author was ever carried out. While
in the ward, she was threatened by another inmate; she was injured during a fight between
inmates and medical personnel, yet did not receive medical treatment; medical staff tried to
give her injections for her “condition”, yet refused to inform her what the medication was.
The author’s lawyers succeeded in having her moved to a different part of the colony after
10 days in the psychiatric ward.
2.10 During her imprisonment, the author was forced to work nine hours a day, followed
sometimes by seven hours of forced standing. Her complaints regarding such incidents
were either not transmitted by the wardens, or were ignored by the administration and the
procurator.3 From July 2006 to April 2008, the wardens continuously accused the author of
violating prison regulations, yet she was denied the possibility to review the documentation
that served as a basis for the accusations. When the author went on a hunger strike in
November 2006 to protest against her treatment, three prison wardens took her to a
punishment cell, where they handcuffed her and hung her by a hook on the wall. One of
them placed one end of a dirty hose in a toilet and threatened that she would be force-fed
with it. She was left hanging from the wall and displayed to a group of law students who
were brought in her cell. Following a visit from her brother in January 2007, during which
the author informed him about the detention conditions, wardens at the women’s colony
forced her to stand outside in the rain in freezing conditions for two hours.
2.11 The author submits that she spent a total of 112 days in solitary confinement. The
law prohibits detention for more than 15 days. On several occasions, the author was
released after 15 days for a few hours and then placed again in isolation. She was
deliberately exposed to freezing conditions, resulting in a deterioration of her health. She
was physically attacked by prison wardens, forced to stand naked in the cold until she lost
consciousness. She did not have access to her lawyers from 8 July 2006 to 2 June 2008. She
3
4
When the author was able to see the procurator in charge of prison oversight around March or April
2007, she reported being ill-treated. The procurator failed to respond to her complaint. Instead, prison
officials and a deputy procurator ordered her to sign a statement that she had no complaints against
prison officials.