Human Rights Watch (HRW) has condemned a parole-like sentence handed to an Uzbek woman in April over her sharing of a 1991 video showing the late President Islam Karimov speaking to Islamists.
The move on September 4 comes two weeks after the Tashkent regional court upheld Sevara Shaidullaeva's 30-month parole-like sentence, which she was handed on a charge of "intentionally storing and distributing materials containing an open call to overthrow the constitutional order of Uzbekistan."
Shaidullaeva, who shared the video clip with her mother, was ordered to observe a curfew, stay away from public events, and not to leave the Tashkent region without permission.
"Uzbek authorities should never have put Sevara [Shaidullaeva] on trial for sharing a video of the former president," HRW's Central Asia researcher Mihra Rittmann said in a statement. "However disagreeable its contents may be to Uzbek authorities, the speech captured in the 33-year-old video is a matter of historical record."
The video in question was taken in December 1991 in the eastern city of Namangan where Karimov was made to sit down in a hall and listen to Tohir Yuldash, the future leader of the Al-Qaeda-linked Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), who lectured Karimov on government and Islam. The video, which Shaidullaeva downloaded from YouTube, has been in circulation for decades.
Karimov met later with a group of people in the Namangan region who had seized local government offices to demand that Uzbekistan be declared an Islamic state, which Karimov on the video promises to do.
However, starting in the late 1990s, Karimov's government launched a massive crackdown on practicing Muslims, which lasted until his death in 2016.
"Significant restrictions on freedom of religion and freedom of expression remain in effect under the administration of current President Shavkat [Mirziyoev]," the HRW statement stresses.
"Sharing a video documenting events that took place over 30 years ago shouldn’t be a crime," Rittmann said. "Uzbek authorities should immediately quash [Shaidullaeva's] conviction and lift all restrictions on her liberty."